After the Bundys and their ilk broke into the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in early 2016, for some reason they displayed venom towards Refuge Biologist Linda Sue Beck.
They took over her office and littered her desktop with bullets and pizza boxes, while they rifled through her files, hacked into computers, stored their firearms, and stole her mementos.
“She’s not here working for the people,” Ryan Bundy said in interviews,”She’s not benefiting America. She’s part of what’s destroying America.” He referred to her as the “Carp Lady.”
Linda Sue Beck was the daughter of local ranchers. A degreed biologist, she helped manage a carp eradication program for the ranchers and the Refuge, to restore the area’s water quality and preserve native fish. This apparently irritated the Bundys.
Beck took the stand recently in the Federal Criminal trial of the Bundy gang. She told the Court that the Bundys had left her office “completely trashed” with “piles of stuff.” The Bundy gang also kicked down the door of another office and stole archeological records, according to testimony. She found items “all shot up” elsewhere.
Since Ryan Bundy is defending himself at this trial, he was allowed to cross-examine Beck. Just 7 months earlier, Ryan had sneered that he would never allow the “Carp Lady” to return to work, and that she was destroying America.
Now they faced each other for the first time, and oh, how the world had turned. The Carp Lady has her office back, while the Bundys now hunker down in a prison cell. The Bundys are facing decades of prison time, and the Carp Lady’s testimony will be part of the reason they will be convicted.
In other trial developments, several members of the Bundy gang have pled to felonies and received prison sentences. Other have been snitches all along. An Oregon State Trooper testified that Mark McConnell, who was Ammon Bundy’s driver the night of his arrest, was an informant. Jason Blomgrem, who pled guilty to a conspiracy count, is also described as a “cooperating government witness.”
Another defendant, Scott Willingham, was so scared about rumors he was an informant, that he threatened to shoot police in order to get arrested. He recently received a 6-month sentence for stealing FBI roadside cameras.
Defendant Jeff Banta told the Oregonian Newspaper that Satan is in charge of the world, and that the Clinton Foundation had made a deal to sell land for uranium. This is an apparent reference to far-right claims that the Hammonds were framed on an arson charge so the Clinton Foundation can seize their ranch and sell the purported ore to the Chinese.
