News – Page 50 – It Matters How You Stand

Wooten letter Part 2: BLM Culture of Abuse and Racism, Egomania, Dan Love’s ‘Kill Book’

A string of exercises in federal overreach all but destroyed westerners’ trust in the BLM. But Dan Love, the BLM SAC behind Operation Cerberus, the Bundy Ranch raid, and whose name is connected with numerous other crimes and debacles, became the face of government at its worst.

The #GoogleDanLove social media hashtag was not invented by Twitter or Facebook, it was created by Americans familiar with the extreme and sometimes lethal actions of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), who felt compelled to make the truth known about the agency’s abusive and dangerous Special Agent in Charge (SAC), Dan Love. A string of exercises in federal overreach, such as the prosecution of the Dwight and Steven Hammond on terrorism charges; Operation Cerberus, which lead to the deaths of several men in the Four Corners region; the burning of ranches and cattle in Oregon, the failed Bundy Ranch raid, and the confrontation outside of John Day, Oregon that ended in the murder of Arizona rancher, LaVoy Finicum, all but destroyed westerners’ trust in the BLM. But Dan Love, the BLM SAC behind Operation Cerberus, the Bundy Ranch raid, and whose name is connected with numerous other crimes and debacles, became the face of government at its worst. And now, when you Google Dan Love, you will see his career at the BLM–which ended only last year after public outcry and stinging embarrassment to the agency–summarized in a list of scandals and wanton acts of degeneracy.

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Recently freed rancher Cliven Bundy sues Nevada, Clark County

Lifelong Southern Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, recently cleared of federal charges and freed from jail after nearly two years, has turned his sights on state and county government.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Clark County District Court, Bundy claimed that former President Barack Obama’s late 2016 establishment of the Gold Butte National Monument, which occurred while the rancher was in federal custody, was “as illegal as it is unlawful” and would preclude him from continuing to function on his land “and destroy the petitioner’s livelihood.”

Bureau of Land Management officials in Las Vegas postponed discussion of the monument at its meetings this month until the Trump administration decides on possible changes to the Obama-era land designation.

“Recognizing that the land is not owned by the United States of America, (Bundy) has avoided erroneously giving money to an entity which does not actually own the land and has been careful not to give money erroneously to a stranger to the land,” according to the rancher’s lawsuit. “Thus, there is an actual, significant legal controversy of great consequence not only to petitioner in terms of as to whom has ownership and jurisdiction of the land but to People of Nevada and Clark county, the rightful owners of Nevada land.”

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Wrongful Death Civil Suit Filed on the The Second Anniversary of Lavoy Finicum’s Murder in Oregon

Today, Attorney Morgan Philpot, representing Jeanette Finicum, widow of Lavoy Finicum Shot and Killed at blind curve roadblock by Oregon State Police and FBI agents on January 26th, 2016, filed the attached Civil Demand for a Jury Trial in Oregon Federal District Court.

Lavoy was driving his truck with passengers Ryan Bundy, Shawna Cox, Victoria Sharp and Ryan Payne, to a meeting with Sherrif Glenn Palmer in John Day. The murder and arrests marked the beginning of the end to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Harney County Oregon.

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Wooten letter exposes abuse, religious bigotry in Dan Love’s BLM operation

Federal Judge, Gloria Navarro’s dismissal of the Bundy Ranch trial last December was attributed in large part to explosive revelations of misconduct, and ethical and legal violations in a letter written by Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agent Larry ‘Clint’ Wooten, to Deputy Attorney General Andrew D. Goldsmith, the National Criminal Discovery Coordinator. The descriptions of unprofessionalism, sexism, and conspiratorial motives in the letter were so shocking that they tanked the federal prosecution’s case. The 18-page letter also contains damning accounts of unconscionable behavior and acts perpetrated by BLM Special Agent in Charge (SAC), Dan Love, which have been largely overlooked by media.

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VINDICATION, The Bundys Walk Free!

“Cliven Bundy was accused of conspiracy against the government,” reported the Western Livestock Journal in a January 8 article on the Bundy ruling. “Instead,” it noted, “the Bundy trial showed it was the government that was conspiring against him.” That charge does not exaggerate in the least the gravity of the government’s wrongdoing in the case.

During her ruling of a mistrial on December 20, Judge Navarro spent nearly 45 minutes reading from the bench, details of the federal misconduct, that she found to be so outrageous and flagrant. A central component of that misconduct concerned the government’s willful withholding of thousands of pages of evidence that supported the Bundys’ defense, and to which the defendants were legally entitled.

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Newly unsealed motions in NV Bundy case reveal details of prosecutors’ discovery violations

In a July 5, 2017 email, Ryan Payne’s lawyers asked prosecutors for copies of all threat assessments prepared before the April 2014 standoff between Cliven Bundy’s supporters and federal officers attempting to impound the Bundy family cattle for years of failing to pay grazing fees and fines.

Prosecutors handling the Nevada standoff case characterized defendants’ continued push for access to the threat assessments as another in their “long list of frivolous and vexatious pleadings.”

Prosecutors didn’t turn over the multiple threat assessments to Payne and his co-defendants, Nevada cattleman Cliven Bundy and his two sons, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, until the four were in the midst of trial in mid-November, and a government witness under cross-examination acknowledged familiarity with one of the reports.

The government’s withholding of multiple threat assessments by the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, the Southern Nevada Counterterrorism Task Force, FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, and Gold Butte Cattle Impound Risk Assessment – which found the Bundys were not likely to use violence – was just one example of the prosecution team’s callous disregard of its constitutional obligations to share with the defense any potentially favorable evidence, according to Payne’s lawyers, assistant federal public defenders Brenda Weksler and Ryan Norwood.

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Rebuke of U.S. attorneys in Cliven Bundy case: ‘Every prosecutor’s nightmare’

The lead prosecutor in the Nevada standoff case against Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and a fourth alleged ringleader told a jury in his opening statement last month that the case centered on the need to respect the rule of law.

Five weeks later, it was the prosecution team’s abuse of the rule of law that sunk the case, leading to a judge’s declaration Wednesday of a mistrial.

U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro methodically listed the prosecution’s six separate violations of the Brady law, which requires turning over evidence potentially favorable to the defense. The judge further ruled that each violation was willful.

If ever there was a time when federal prosecutors needed to make sure they acted with complete integrity it was in the high-stakes Bundy case, legal observers say. The defendants already held a deep suspicion of the government and had successfully rallied followers to their cause.

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AG Sessions orders examination of Bundy case after mistrial over prosecution bungling

Attorney General Jeff Sessions stepped into the Bundy prosecution after Wednesday’s mistrial, ordering a third-party examination of the case in light of the latest government snafu.

“The attorney general takes this issue very seriously and has personally directed that an expert in the [Justice Department’s] discovery obligations be deployed to examine the case and advise as to the next steps,” said Ian D. Prior, the department’s principal deputy director of public affairs, in a late Wednesday statement.

The decision to intervene came after Chief U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial over the government’s “willful failure to disclose information” to the defense, saying it would have been “impossible” for the four co-defendants to receive a fair trial.

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The Bundy Affair #23 – Larry Wooten – Ethical Government Employee, and Rare

I received in the mail, with no return address, an 18 page email that I had heard about. However, the details in what I had heard were minimal, at best. But, having the whole 18 pages, I find that the initial, or original email was only 17 pages.

In an undated email from Larry Wooten to Andrew D. Goldsmith, Associate Deputy Attorney General, National Criminal Discovery Coordinator, Wooten writes of many misdeeds in the entire Gold Butte Impound Operation, that being the operation that unfolded near Bunkerville, Nevada, back in early April 2014.

In a cover email, the eighteenth page, to Steven Myhre, United States Attorney for the Nevada District, in a forwarded email, the 17 page emails is included for a total of 18 pages. Wooten explains in the cover email that his superiors, his chain of command, would not deal with what he had presented to them. I’m not quite sure why he sent it to Myhre, since Myhre is implicated in the information, along with any others.

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BLM investigator alleges misconduct by feds in Bundy ranch standoff

Prosecutors shared it last week with defense lawyers for Bundy, his two sons and co-defendant Ryan Payne as they were in the midst of their conspiracy trial, but it’s not part of the public court record.

The memo prompted Cliven Bundy’s lawyer to file a motion early Monday to dismiss the case, already in disarray over concerns raised previously about the government’s failure to promptly share evidence with the defense.

The judge sent the jury home for more than a week as she tries to sort out the claims and prosecutors scramble to save their case.

The memo comes from Larry Wooten, who had been the lead case agent and investigator for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management after the tense confrontation outside the patriarch’s ranch near Bunkerville. Wooten also testified before a federal grand jury that returned indictments against the Bundys. He said he was removed from the investigation last February after he complained to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nevada.

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Inmate escape attempt in Pahrump prompts response

An inmate’s attempted escape from the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) facility along East Mesquite Avenue on Saturday prompted the response from Nye County sheriff’s deputies, authorities said.

CCA officials contacted the sheriff’s office regarding the escape attempt from the facility, also known as the Nevada Southern Detention Center, at approximately 12 p.m., a news release reported.

The release noted that sheriff’s office staff responded and set up a perimeter while CCA staff conducted a facility-wide headcount.

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Judge releases 4 more Bunkerville standoff defendants

Last week, Cliven Bundy’s lawyer, Bret Whipple, said his client turned down U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro’s conditions of release because he believed he was innocent and would not accept restrictions on his freedom. He also said Cliven Bundy did not want others jailed in connection with the standoff.

Now that two more of his sons who were charged in the Bunkerville case have been let out of jail, and none of the standoff defendants awaiting trial remains behind bars, Whipple plans to discuss with his client the possibility of being with family for the holidays.

“I’m going to encourage him to allow me to help him,” Whipple said. “But at the end of the day, Cliven is a very principled man, and he follows his own principles, and I respect that.”

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Interior secretary recommends shrinking Gold Butte

Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday recommended shrinking the boundaries of Gold Butte National Monument in a move that distressed conservationists, who have fought for years to protect the land near Mesquite. Zinke’s report came one day after the president slashed the size of two national monuments in Utah, a move that has already sparked a lawsuit.
Compared to the wholesale changes the president approved in Utah, any adjustments to Gold Butte are expected to be minor. But Zinke’s recommendations, although similar to a leaked draft in September, carry a symbolic weight for the area. They signal a major reversal of public lands policy that comes almost exactly one year after President Obama designated the nearly 300,000 acres that start about 10 miles from the site of the 2014 Bundy standoff.

“We will fight it in court,” Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity wrote in an email. “And we will win.”

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Southern Nevada District Resource Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement is being revived for the first time since 2014.

LAS VEGAS – The Bureau of Land Management requests public input for a Revised Draft Southern Nevada District Resource Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement.

The BLM has determined that a Revised Draft RMP/EIS should be developed and an opportunity for public input is needed to gather additional information on the areas of renewable energy, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, lands with wilderness characteristics, land tenure adjustments (land disposals), Gold Butte National Monument, and socio-economics.

Opportunity to provide input is offered from now until February 2, 2018. During this period, the BLM will conduct public meetings to present information and provide for the opportunity for public input. The Revised Draft RMP/EIS will incorporate substantive comments received from the initial Draft RMP/EIS and information received from the public input period and meetings.

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Oregon refuge occupier Jon Ritzheimer: ‘I am extremely sorry for this entire mess’

Jon Ritzheimer, a military veteran who led and recruited others to the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison and must spend another 12 months in a residential re-entry program, a federal judge ordered Thursday.

Ritzheimer, dressed in a blue suit and tie with a band of military medals from his two tours of Marine Corps Reserve duty in Iraq pinned to his jacket, apologized to the judge and those impacted by the 41-day occupation of the federal bird sanctuary in Harney County.

“I did read through the victim reports, and I do believe people were genuinely afraid,” he said. “It absolutely was not my intent for anyone to feel that way…I am extremely sorry for this entire mess.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel urged U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown to sentence Ritzheimer to two years in prison, citing his leadership and “aggravating” role in the occupation.

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Nevada rancher refuses judge’s offer of release during trial

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A federal judge offered to release a rancher and states’ rights figure from custody during his trial on charges involving an armed standoff that stopped a government cattle roundup three years ago in Nevada.

But Cliven Bundy refused to leave jail while others are still behind bars awaiting trial in the case.

Bundy, 71, didn’t state his reason in court Wednesday. But his wife, Carol Bundy, noted in a courthouse hallway that two other sons, Mel and David Bundy, are approaching two years in federal detention.

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Supporters greet Ammon Bundy in Las Vegas after his release

Ammon Bundy, on trial with his rancher father Cliven Bundy, was released from jail Thursday morning.

A crowd of about 50 supporters and family members, including Ammon Bundy’s wife and six children, cheered and hugged him as he walked out of the Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse in downtown Las Vegas.

His brother, Ryan, another defendant facing a jury on charges connected with the 2014 armed standoff in Bunkerville, was among those in the crowd. The two hugged briefly before Ammon Bundy spoke with reporters.

“Freedom is important,” he said, wearing a blue-and-white plaid shirt, bluejeans and orange sandals. “It’s important because of our families. It’s important because of the great things we enjoy every day as Americans. America has always been an example of freedom, an example of family, an example of what’s good in this world. And really all my family has ever tried to do is just promote that.”

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Jeff Sessions on Free Speech – Should be Read in Court

Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave a speech at Georgetown Law School on September 17th. This was a powerful talk about how freedom of speech is under attack on college campuses in America.

Sessions makes many important points that should apply, not strictly to the school campus, but to all aspects in our fight for Liberty.

He points out an incident where students were handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution and were arrested for behavior that was considered “provocative” and in violation of government policy.

Government Policy?

Sessions states: “In this great land, the government does not get to tell you what to think or what to say.”

He talks about Free Speech Zones, and how the Supreme Court has warned against them.

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Bundy Trial – The Prosecution Opens It’s Case

The Bundy trial continues into its next phase in Las Vegas, Nevada. Cliven Bundy, with sons Ryan and Ammon, and their co-defendant Ryan Payne, face felony charges that could result in over 100 years in prison for each.

Directly after opening statements, the prosecution “opened” its case against the Bundy’s and Payne. The prosecution will be in charge of much of the narrative in the next month or two until they “rest” their case. They will be calling the witnesses who are most favorable to the governments theory; usually government employees of the BLM, FBI and other law enforcement agencies. The defendants will be allowed to cross-examine the governments witnesses. The Bundy’s and Payne will have their turn to “open” their case after the government has “rested” theirs.

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Judge was rude, security over the top in Oregon occupation trial, defense lawyers say

Several defense attorneys from the first Oregon refuge occupation trial have written memos supporting Ammon Bundy’s lawyer in his fight with the federal court over his behavior during and at the end of the trial when he was tackled by federal marshals and stunned with a Taser.

The attorneys praised Marcus Mumford for his demeanor, said he didn’t have enough time to prepare for the trial but was a zealous advocate for his client. Some wrote that U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown was especially tough on Mumford, and there was longstanding animosity between Mumford and the marshals before the physical confrontation.

Mumford faced criminal charges after deputy marshals tackled him in the courtroom and took him into custody following the announcement of not guilty verdicts on Oct. 27, 2016, but prosecutors later dropped them. Mumford had shouted at the judge, argued for Ammon Bundy’s release and demanded to see a detention order from Nevada.

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Former inmate shares life behind bars with Cliven Bundy

“Tell me about this standoff.”

And with that, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy found a biographer behind bars.

Bundy had invited a fellow inmate to sit down at a table with him. They chatted about farming, raising cattle, growing melons and grandchildren.

Soon, they were walking regular laps together around the inside of a large unit that housed 94 bunk beds between concrete cinderblock walls about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.

And when the time seemed right, inmate Michael Stickler broached the subject of why the Bundy patriarch was in custody at the Southern Nevada Detention Center in Pahrump.

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Cliven Bundy Sues DOJ and FBI Over Prosecutorial Abuse!

Complaint Meant to Force AG Sessions To Review and Dismiss Charges

(Washington, D.C., November 10, 2017). Today, Larry Klayman, the founder of both Judicial Watch and now Freedom Watch, announced a lawsuit filed in his private capacity on behalf of Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who stood up to government tyranny under the Obama administration. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Case No. 1:17-cv-02429) against Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray in their official capacities, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and the Inspector General (IG) over their failure to conduct an investigation into the bad faith and gross prosecutorial abuse by federal prosecutors and the destruction and hiding of material exculpatory evidence by the DOJ, FBI and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the ongoing criminal prosecution.

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Call-To-Action – Todd Engel Needs Your Help!

Todd Engel is a Political Prisoner being held for his role in the Bunkerville Standoff Trial.

Engel attempted to represent himself after receiving a court appointed attorney that reportedly fell asleep during the trial.

This was allowed for a short time, until Engel mentioned the forbidden name of Dan Love. Judge Gloria Navarro immediately stripped Engel of his right to self-representation for mentioning the name of the disgraced Special Agent in Charge during the Standoff. Love has since been fired from the BLM.

Engel was convicted of two lesser offenses. He was not convicted of either Conspiracy charge, nor any gun-related charges. He is scheduled for sentencing on December 22, 2017.

Engel should be nearing his release date, as the charges he was convicted of do not have mandatory minimums or long sentencing recommendations. But the government have released new recommendations for him that include guidelines for charges of which he was never convicted.

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Cliven Bundy to Remain in Jail – Bunkerville Standoff

The third Bunkerville Standoff Trail in Las Vegas has been delayed for several motions to be resolved before opening arguments.

Thursday saw a pre-trial detention release hearing for the four defendants, Cliven Bundy, his two sons Ryan and Ammon, as well as defendant Ryan Payne.

Bret Whipple, attorney for Cliven Bundy, argued for release of his client citing his age and failing health. The elder Bundy has noticeably weakened since his incarceration nearly two years ago.

Whipple told the court of Bundy’s dental problems, noting that the 71-year-old has had to pull several of his own teeth in his attempts to stop infections. Dental care is minimal in the CCA detention center.

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