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Vol. 82/No. 9 March 5, 2018
Gov’t moves to reopen frame-up case against Bundys
BY SETH GALINSKY
U.S. prosecutors have not given up their witch hunt against the Bundy
cattle-ranching family in Nevada, even after the feds’ frame-up charges
against them and their supporters have either been thrown out of court
or led to acquittal at trial.
The Nevada U.S. Attorney’s Office asked U.S. District Judge Gloria
Navarro Feb. 7 to “reinstate the entire indictment” against Cliven
Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and supporter Ryan Payne, or to
allow them to prosecute on at least some of the charges.
At the same time the prosecutors moved that charges against four other
defendants in a parallel case be dismissed, since, they admitted, there
is little chance a conviction can be won.
When the frame-up began to unravel, Navarro decried the government’s
“outrageous” and “flagrant misconduct” Jan. 8, and dismissed all the
charges against the Bundys and Payne “with prejudice” — meaning they
cannot be filed again. This is what government prosecutors are trying to
get the judge to reverse.
The judge noted not only did the prosecution withhold evidence from the
defendants, it made “several misrepresentations to the defense, and to
the Court.” Among the “misrepresentations” — legalese for lies — were
denials that the government deployed snipers and surveillance cameras
around the Bundy ranch, as well as hiding the existence of government
reports containing information that contradicted the prosecutions’ case
against them.
The frame-up charges — from conspiracy to “impede and injure a federal
officer” to “obstruction of justice” — stem from the refusal of Cliven
Bundy to allow the Bureau of Land Management to confiscate hundreds of
his cattle in April 2014. When the family called for help and hundreds
of supporters showed up, federal agents backed down and the cattle were
released.
The four defendants had been held in prison for some two years waiting
for trial.
The BLM claimed that the restrictions on cattle grazing on federal land
the Bundys had used for decades — restrictions that drove every other
rancher in Clark County out of business — were necessary to protect the
“threatened” desert tortoise. Yet in 2013 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service reported so many thousands of pet desert tortoises had been
abandoned at a wildlife center that it couldn’t take any more.
Related articles:
Criminal ‘justice’ parole system pushes workers back into prison
NY cop who killed Deborah Danner is let off
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