Obviously emboldened by the shocking “not guilty” verdict in the Oregon trial, Ryan Bundy tells The Washington Post that another standoff might be imminent:
Less than a week after being acquitted at a trial over last winter’s armed occupation of an Oregon federal wildlife refuge, Nevada rancher Ryan Bundy said another protest action will be justified if President Obama goes ahead with plans to create a huge national monument abutting the Bundy family’s ranch here.
“Absolutely! That’s the best thing in the world for [people] to do,” Bundy said Monday in a telephone interview from an Oregon jail, where he is being held pending a February trial related to a separate armed standoff in 2014 with federal agents at his family’s ranch.
Nevada Senator Harry Reid has long pushed for the Gold Butte area to be designated as a National Monument, something he hopes President Obama will do before he leaves office:
Such a designation would be the president’s second in Nevada, and would widen federal protections to maintain Gold Butte’s historic significance.
Gold Butte lies south of Mesquite near the Arizona border. It is roughly 350,000 acres of government-protected conservation land and wilderness managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management.
The property is home to the desert tortoise, a historic mining town and ancient Native American petroglyphs and artifacts.
For now, Ryan Bundy won’t reveal any plans for a possible action:
Bundy, 44, wouldn’t say whether he and his family would encourage some kind of anti-government action over Gold Butte, because “I never say what we will do.” But asked whether violence was ever justified against an abusive government, Bundy said: “Ask George Washington.”
Harry Reid says the effort to designate Gold Butte a National Monument will not be derailed by the Bundy family and their followers.
Wednesday, Nov 2, 2016 · 3:44:28 PM +00:00
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Jen Hayden
The Bundy brothers are getting a change of address today:
The Bundys Wednesday were discharged from the Multnomah County Detention Center about 7:45 a.m. to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, according to a jail spokeswoman.
The two are being flown to Nevada, where they are among 19 indicted on federal charges stemming from the 2014 armed standoff with federal agents over grazing rights near their father Cliven Bundy's ranch .
In Nevada, they face 16 felony counts, including extortion, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer, assault on a federal officer, and threatening a federal officer