Doug Knowles

Is Prosecution Retaliating Against Todd Engel?

Todd Engel is one of the Bunkerville defendants that will face Judge Gloria Navarro in a sentencing hearing.

Out of a 16-count indictment, Engel was charged with 10 counts and convicted of 2 counts after his trial earlier this year.

These are the least serious of all the charges, and do not carry enhancements or mandatory minimum sentencing.

Greg Burleson was also convicted during the same trial, though he was convicted of 8 of 10 charges, including enhancements.

Thomas Mitchell: A jury of their peers? Hardly

A federal jury is set to begin hearing opening statements Tuesday in the trial of four defendants in the Bunkerville standoff.

There are six women and six men on the jury and there are four alternates, three men, and a woman.

The judge said the trial is expected to take four months. A number of potential jurors were dismissed because they could not take four months out of their lives to devote to the trial. How many people can or are willing to? Is it a jury of their peers?

On trial is rancher Cliven Bundy, 71, sons Ammon Bundy, 42, and Ryan Bundy, 45, and a self-styled militia member Ryan Payne, 34, who showed up to protest the confiscation of Bundy’s cattle by the BLM. They are charged with conspiracy, extortion and various firearm charges. They have all been jailed for going on two years.

Las Vegas trial to begin for rancher Cliven Bundy and sons

Cliven Bundy, lead defendant in a case stemming from a 2014 standoff with federal agents and the 71-year-old patriarch of a family with roots in the southeastern Nevada desert since the state was founded more than 150 years ago, won’t let his lawyer buy him a suit for trial.

Instead of the standard slacks, button-down shirt and tie that incarcerated male defendants often don while facing a jury, the recalcitrant rancher plans to wear a jail-issued blue jumpsuit and orange flip-flops when he faces potential jurors for the first time on Monday morning.

“He is so principled that he’s going to do what he’s going to do, which is tell the truth and tell it as he sees it, and he’s not worried about the consequences, other than the people around him,” his lawyer, Bret Whipple, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week. “He refuses to put on civilian clothing because it would be misleading the jury, because he is who he is.”

Bundy, his two sons Ryan and Ammon and independent militia leader Ryan Payne have been locked up without bail in a federal holding facility for nearly two years. They face the potential of decades behind bars if convicted of conspiracy and other charges related to the armed standoff.

Official Bundy Trial Updates – Sponsored by the Bundy Family!

It has been rumored that the Bundy Families have engaged a professional Public Relations expert to provide once-daily Trial Updates during the upcoming trial. These updates are expected to be shorter and more concise than typical updates that we have seen in the past and by others. It is understood, that it is not desired to replace others that have been providing updates in the past or recently. The intent is to, provide not only an official source, but also a shorter and more to the point update that can be viewed quickly and not require a viewer to listen […]

Eric Parker To Plead To a Misdemeanor

The Trial of the Century has gotten a little bit smaller.

Currently, 6 men are expected to be tried in the Bunkerville Standoff trial expected to begin jury selection on October 30th. Cliven Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan, as well as Ryan Payne are ready. Eric Parker and Scott Drexler are scheduled for their third trial, after two previous trials this year resulting in acquittals and deadlocked verdicts.

But Parker and Drexler have been offered plea agreements by the government that will allow them to close the book on this chapter of their lives.

Federal Agency Promoted Ranger Five Months After His Gun Was Stolen and Used in Steinle Killing

Five months after Kathryn Steinle was slain on San Francisco’s waterfront, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management promoted the law enforcement ranger whose unsecured stolen gun was used to kill her, according to an internal BLM email obtained by KQED.

Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, an undocumented Mexican national, is expected to go on trial in San Francisco next week on a charge of murder in Steinle’s killing. Conservative lawmakers have seized on Garcia Zarate’s history of deportations and illegal re-entry into the U.S. — plus San Francisco’s policy that ignored a detention request from immigration authorities — to fuel a political assault on so-called sanctuary cities.

BLM experiments with ‘flexible’ grazing permits

The Bureau of Land Management is taking applications from Western states to test outcome-based grazing, which enables ranchers to manage according to current conditions rather than rigid permit requirements. BOISE — Mike Courtney may finally get the chance to implement a more common-sense grazing approach to controlling weeds and minimizing the wildfire risk in the Berger Resource Conservation Area.

Courtney, manager for the Bureau of Land Management’s Twin Falls District, will apply to include the grazing area south of Buhl in a BLM pilot project, testing a new approach intended to increase flexibility in grazing permits.

Thomas Mitchell Newspaper column: Bill would limit power to create national monuments

The House Committee on Natural Resources this past week approved a bill sponsored by Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop to rein in the powers granted by the Antiquities Act of 1906 that allow a president to unilaterally create huge national monuments.

The bill advanced on a party line vote of 27-13, with Democrats in opposition.

The bill, H.R. 3990, the National Monument Creation and Protection Act, amends the Antiquities Act to limit the size of future monuments and specifically grants the sitting president the power to reduce the size of existing monuments — a power Democrats have argued President Trump does not have under current law.

During his administration President Obama created 26 national monuments totaling more than 500 million acres — including the 700,000-acre Basin and Range National Monument on the border of Lincoln and Nye counties and the 300,000-acre Gold Butte National Monument in Clark County.

Larry Klayman: FBI-police cover-up of mass shooting?

I have seen it many times before. An FBI or law-enforcement informant, or some other “politically sensitive person,” commits a crime, and federal, state or local government authorities cover it up. This is the likely scenario in the wake of the Oct. 1, 2017, massacre in Las Vegas, perpetrated by an alleged mysterious man named Stephen Paddock. Let me give you just a few analogous examples.

First there is the famous case of Whitey Bulger, an Italian Mafia crime boss who was responsible for the deaths of many. Here briefly is how his Wikipedia describes his history as an FBI informant:

More than a third of National Park Service employees harassed at work; Zinke calls for accountability, transparency

ST. GEORGE — Federal officials on Friday released the results of a survey in which 39 percent of National Park Service employees said they had experienced harassment or discrimination on the job, then vowed to take immediate action to deal with the problem.

“From day one, I made it clear that I have zero tolerance for harassment in the workplace, and I directed leadership in the National Park Service to move rapidly to improve accountability and transparency,” Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said. “All employees have the right to work in an environment that is safe and harassment-free.

“I’ve removed a number of people who were abusive or acted improperly that other administrations were too afraid to or just turned a blind eye to. Under my leadership, we’re going to hold people accountable. We are also fixing the problem of victims being afraid of retaliation or inaction by codifying the right for victims to report abuse to any manager in any location across the service, and by bringing on an independent, investigative partner.”

Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Government Transparency Against Private Prison Corporations

October 10, 2017, New York, NY – Today, the Supreme Court denied a petition by private prison corporations seeking to block the release of government documents about their immigration detention practices. In a case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Detention Watch Network (DWN), under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a federal district court ruled in July 2016, that the government must release details of its contracts with private prison corporations. The government chose not to appeal; instead, the country’s two largest private prison corporations, GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), recently rebranded as “CoreCivic,” intervened to appeal the decision to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which dismissed their petition in February. GEO then petitioned the Supreme Court for a full review of the case, asking for the right to prevent the government from releasing information under the FOIA.

New lawsuits against “militias” aims to prevent more violence in Charlottesville

Two newly filed lawsuits against the white nationalists and others who descended on Charlottesville during a summer rally aim to prevent the type of violent chaos that unfolded from happening again.

One of the lawsuits was filed Thursday in Charlottesville Circuit Court on behalf of the city, local businesses and neighborhood associations. It accuses organizers of the August “Unite the Right” rally, leading figures in the white nationalist movement and their organizations, as well as private militia groups and their leaders, of violating Virginia law by organizing and acting as paramilitary units.

It doesn’t seek monetary damages but asks for a court order prohibiting “illegal paramilitary activity.”

“Touted as an opportunity to protest the removal of a controversial Confederate statue, the event quickly escalated well beyond such constitutionally protected expression,” the lawsuit says. “Instead, private military forces transformed an idyllic college town into a virtual combat zone.”

They Are Being Scrutinized In An Unprecedented Way By The Citizens Of The Country.

We previously reported on a motion filed by Ryan Bundy to have Judge Gloria Navarro recused from the Bunkerville Standoff case.

This motion is based on the premise that public perception is heavily against Navarro. It goes to the general consensus throughout the country that activist Judge Navarro is using her authority to further her agenda by blatantly ruling in favor of the prosecution and against the defense.

The motion was based on dozens of articles from both alternative media and Main Stream media. Sites including Redoubt News, as well as the Las Vegas Review Journal and the New York Times, are reporting that the story has now become about Judge Navarro and her obvious bias, instead of what actually happened on April 12, 2014.

This is a powerful motion. This argument does not address whether or not Navarro is actually biased, it only references the public perception of her bias. This goes to the growing lack of trust the citizens in the country have against the federal judicial system and, by extension, the Federal government.

Ken Medenbach gets green light to attend 7 days of Bundy trial in Nevada

Ken Medenbach will get his wish to attend part of the Bundy trial in Nevada.

A federal judge this week granted his request, with a list of conditions recommended by federal prosecutors.

The judge said Medenbach’s trip can last seven days to attend the start of the Nevada trial against Cliven Bundy, his two sons Ryan Bundy and Ammon Bundy, Ryan Payne and two other co-defendants. Pete Santilli reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and was released from custody last week.

U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane set other conditions for Medenbach: He can’t wear or display any clothing or buttons with messages while in the federal courtroom, noting that he was ordered to remove one that read “jury nullification” and “not guilty” during the Oregon refuge occupation trial.

Private gun sales: Nevada governor wants guidance on background-check law

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval is seeking legal guidance into whether the state can implement the stalled background-check law for private gun sales and transfers that voters approved in 2016.

Sandoval spokeswoman Mari St. Martin said Tuesday the governor’s office is asking Attorney General Adam Laxalt’s office if Nevada can operate as a “dual point of contact state.”

That means two systems of background checks for firearm purchases: one for licensed dealers and another for private sales and transfers. No evidence has emerged that background checks for private sales would have stopped Stephen Paddock, who didn’t have a criminal record and purchased firearms in retail gun stores after passing background checks.

Declining populations of threatened bull trout along two rivers in Oregon’s Malheur National Forest were not caused by grazing authorizations, a federal judge has ruled.

Environmentalists have failed to prove that grazing along two rivers in Oregon’s Malheur National Forest unlawfully harmed the threatened bull trout, according to a federal judge.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Papak has found that the U.S. Forest Service’s grazing authorizations along the Malheur and North Fork Malheur rivers haven’t violated environmental laws.

Papak has recommended dismissing a lawsuit filed against the agency by the Oregon Natural Desert Association and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Post-Las Vegas Shooting Proposed Jury Questions

With the recent events in Las Vegas on 10-1-2017 and the trial postponed the defendants in the Bundy Trials were offered an opportunity to submit additional questions for a follow-up jury questioner. Below are the questions submitted so far.

Cliven Bundy: Feds don’t own Western states

Larry Klayman shares news in battle over land seized illegally by U.S. government. Events important for preserving America’s Constitution will be soon unfolding. Nevada rancher Cliven D. Bundy’s federal trial will finally begin in Las Vegas, Nevada, for a 2014 peaceful protest in support of the Constitution some incorrectly called “The Battle of Bunkerville.”

In fact, there was no battle from the standpoint of the peaceful protesters. Rather, it was the federal government – then run by former President Barack Obama – that threatened the Bundy family’s lives, beat the heck out of the sister of Cliven Bundy, Tasered his two sons, violently kicked the family dog and killed many of their cattle, burying them in a mass secret grave.

Department of Defense Purges SPLC Information from its Training Material

The Department of Defense (DOD) has recently removed all its material related to extremist groups that came from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The DOD infamously used the discredited SPLC’s data, which led it to compare Catholic and Protestant Christians to al Qaeda, as examples of religious extremism. CRC has extensively covered the left-wing bent of the SPLC that has prompted it to include mainstream, conservative nonprofits with legitimate hate groups with histories of violence.
The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained an email from the Department of Justice in which Brian J. Field, assistant U.S. attorney for the DOD Civil Division, confirmed that the DOD Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity has removed “any and all references to the SPLC in training materials used by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI).”

Antiquities Act weakens rural communities by robbing them of lands

GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said Wednesday that the Antiquities Act of 1906 represents the kind of collusion among special interests, bureaucrats and the executive that he was elected to fight.

“[The Antiquities Act] is an attack on our republican form of government that weakens rural communities by robbing them of agency and opportunity on the surrounding lands,” Lee said in a speech at a joint Heritage Foundation and Sutherland Institute event Wednesday on abuses of the Antiquities Act. “What is needed is wholesale reform of the Antiquities Act, to return its monumental power back to where it belongs: To the people who reside closest to the proposed monuments.”

Reporter Pete Santilli Accepts Plea Deal in Bundy Ranch Case

Early this morning, I spoke to Santilli via phone and he was indeed released and spoke of how good it felt to be free again. The vast majority of that conversation was off the record, but there is no doubt that he did what he thought was right considering the odds against him.

As we reported earlier, the corruption of Judge Navarro, the prosecution led by Steven Myhre and the lies that surround government land grabs and unconstitutional agencies enforcing those land grabs make it nearly impossible for someone to get a fair hearing in a trial.

Trial in Bundy Standoff Postponed Due to Las Vegas Shooting

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A federal judge has agreed to postpone the trial of Nevada cattleman Cliven Bundy and others in a 2014 armed standoff because of the Las Vegas mass shooting.

Defense attorneys argued that the attack would cast a shadow over the trial, which was set to start Tuesday in Las Vegas. On Friday, the judge rescheduled it for Oct. 30.

Bundy, two sons and others are accused of conspiring to enlist a self-styled militia to prevent U.S. Bureau of Land Management agents and civilian employees from removing Bundy’s cattle from federal land in Nevada.

Defendant In Nevada Standoff Case Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy To Impede Or Injure A Federal Officer

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – A defendant charged in the case involving the armed standoff in Bunkerville, Nev. pleaded guilty today in federal court, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Steven W. Myhre for the District of Nevada, Special Agent in Charge Aaron C. Rouse for the FBI’s Las Vegas Division, and Acting Director Michael D. Nedd for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Peter T. Santilli Jr, 52, of Cincinnati, Ohio, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer. United States District Chief Judge Gloria M. Navarro accepted the guilty plea. Sentencing is set for Jan. 11, 2018. At the time of sentencing, Santilli faces up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

BLM Potential chief clashed with agency, represented Bundy

Wyoming-based property rights attorney Karen Budd-Falen yesterday acknowledged she is under consideration to become the next director of the Bureau of Land Management but said she has yet to determine if she would want to take the helm of the agency she has clashed with throughout her career.

Budd-Falen, who spoke with E&E News from her Cheyenne, Wyo., law office, said she has spoken with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke about the post, although she does not know when the Trump administration will select a nominee.

A spokesman for the Interior Department said this week he did not have any information on potential nominees or the selection process.

But while Budd-Falen, who served on the Trump administration’s transition team at Interior, acknowledged that she is interested in leading the agency, she added that she is torn about potentially leaving her home state.

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