By Andrew Craft Published July 10, 2017 Fox News
Jury selection began Monday for a retrial of four men accused of conspiring against the government when they joined an armed protest with Cliven Bundy on his Nevada ranch in 2014.
Eric Parker, Scott Drexler, Steven Stewart and Ricky Lovelien were present during a tense confrontation in Bunkerville between Bureau of Land Management agents who were trying to seize cattle from Bundy.
The case centers around constitutional issues including free speech and land and gun rights. The U.S. attorney’s office for the state of Nevada would not comment on pending litigation.
The retrial follows a mistrial that occurred this past April when jurors couldn’t decide on the first group of defendants in a three-tier case.
Two defendants pleaded guilty last year were found guilty during the first trial, but jurors still didn’t determine 50 of the 60 counts that were brought up leaving four men with no verdict. Prosecutors initially separated the case into three groups based on culpability with a total of 17 defendants. The first trial involved conspirators deemed the least responsible.
No shots were fired in the armed standoff, but the indictment claimed protesters pointed guns at federal agents. The federal indictment said Bundy was under a 1998 court order demanding he remove his cattle from federal lands. Bundy and his supporters said they believed the government was far too encroaching, violating their free speech and gun rights.
“The Bundy’s and their group, I see that, that’s key, but the group of protestors they’re going after so aggressively, that’s where I have trouble making the connection, “ said Ron Bamieh, a former Justice Department prosecutor who questions the federal government’s strategy.
Bamieh added there are significant political implications as a jury is chosen in this case. “There are going to be some people who are like wait these guys are white nationalists who are against the government, we don’t support that. There’s going to be other people who are going to say no, these are patriots who are opposing the federal government that is overreaching completely and limiting these other people rights.”
Cliven Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan, and two other defendants are due for trial later this year. Prosecutors phased out separate trials since it would be logistically impossible to try 17 people at once.
Andrew Craft is a Fox News multimedia reporter based in Las Vegas, Nevada . Follow him on twitter: @AndrewCraft
One basic fact that always seems to be left out of all the articles coming from the mainstream media is that, according to the Constitution for the United States, the federal government is NOT ALLOWED to own land within state boundaries… that land belongs to the STATE! Therefore, the federal government has NO jurisdiction within a state other than for the few purposes delegated by the Constitutipon in Article 1 Section 8 which lists those powers which the federal government has been assigned. Read that for yourself, it is IMPORTANT!
In addition, Amendment 10 of the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, states “The powers NOT delegated to the United States (i.e. the Federal Government) by the Constitution, nor prohibited by the States, are reserved FOR THE STATES respectively, or to the people.” In other words, if a power is not assigned to the feds in Article 1 Section 8, any action taken by the federal government other than those explicitly listed there is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, thus is ILLEGAL. Therefore, the only concusion one can draw from this is that the feds have NO jurisdiction within State boundaries except as enumerated in Section 8 of Article 1. It then goes to follow that the federal court system cannot legally arrest, prosecute, try or convict an individual except under the powers delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land.
The mainstream media are either woefully ignorant of that document, or there is an underlying illegal agenda. I personally believe BOTH the secret agenda and the ignorance are epidemic, and if not eradicated will lead to the destruction of these United States!