Shadows of Ruby Ridge: Did feds in Bundy Ranch raid have license to kill? ? Free Range Report
New post on Free Range Report
Shadows of Ruby Ridge: Did feds in Bundy Ranch raid have license to kill?
by editor
On August 21, 1992, six camouflaged U.S. Marshals carrying machine guns trespassed onto the Weavers’ property. Three marshals circled close to the Weaver cabin and killed one of their dogs. A firefight ensued and 14-year old Sammy Weaver was shot in the back and killed as he was leaving the scene.
As posted by Zero Hedge
Originally authored by James Bovard in The Hill
Government's Misconduct In Cliven Bundy Case Stems From Ruby Ridge
Federal judge Gloria Navarro slammed the FBI and Justice Department on Monday, Jan. 8, for “outrageous” abuses and “flagrant misconduct” in the prosecution of Cliven Bundy and sons, the Nevada ranchers who spurred a high-profile standoff with the FBI and Bureau of Land Management in 2014.
Navarro condemned the "grossly shocking” withholding of evidence from defense counsel in a case that could have landed the Bundys in prison for the rest of their lives. Navarro, who had declared a mistrial last month, dismissed all charges against the Bundys.
Navarro was especially riled because the FBI spent three years covering up or lying about the role of their snipers in the 2014 standoff. The Bundys faced conspiracy charges because they summoned militia to defend them after claiming FBI snipers had surrounded their ranch. Justice Department lawyers scoffed at this claim but newly-released documents vindicate the Bundys. In an interview Saturday, Ammon Bundy reviled the feds:
“They basically came to kill our family, they surrounded us with snipers. And then they wanted to lie about it all like none of it happened."
Many of the heavily-armed activists who flocked to the scene feared that the FBI snipers had a license to kill the Bundys.
Federal snipers positioned on hill above location of Bundy Ranch raid
Their reaction cannot be understood without considering a landmark 1990s case that continues to shape millions of Americans’ attitude towards Washington: the federal killings and coverups at Ruby Ridge.
Randy Weaver and his family lived in an isolated cabin in the mountains of northern Idaho. Weaver was a white separatist who believed races should live apart; he had no record of violence against other races – or anyone else. An undercover federal agent entrapped him into selling a sawed-off shotgun. The feds then sought to pressure Weaver to become an informant but he refused.
After Weaver was sent the wrong court date and failed to show up, the feds launched a vendetta. Idaho lawyer David Nevin noted that U.S.:
“Marshals called in military aerial reconnaissance and had photos studied by the Defense Mapping Agency. They prowled the woods around Weaver’s cabin with night-vision equipment. They had psychological profiles performed and installed $130,000 worth of long-range solar-powered spy cameras. … They even knew the menstrual cycle of Weaver’s teenage daughter, and planned an arrest scenario around it.”
On August 21, 1992, six camouflaged U.S. Marshals carrying machine guns trespassed onto the Weavers’ property. Three marshals circled close to the Weaver cabin and killed one of their dogs. A firefight ensued and 14-year old Sammy Weaver was shot in the back and killed as he was leaving the scene. Kevin Harris, a family friend, responded by fatally shooting a federal marshal who had fired seven shots in the melee.
The next day, the FBI sent in its Hostage Rescue Team snipers with orders to shoot to kill any adult maleoutside the Weaver cabin. A federal appeals court ruling later noted that:
“FBI agents formulated rules of engagement that permitted their colleagues to hide in the bushes and gun down men who posed no immediate threat. Such wartime rules are patently unconstitutional for a police action.”
FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot Randy Weaver in the back after he stepped out of his cabin, wounding him. Horiuchi then shot and killed Vicki Weaver standing in the cabin door holding their 10-month old baby. A confidential 1994 Justice Department task force report concluded:
“The absence of a (surrender demand) subjected the Government to charges that it was setting Weaver up for attack.”
Weaver and Harris surrendered after an 11-day siege. At their 1993 trial, federal prosecutors asserted that Weaver long conspired to have an armed confrontation with the government. The feds bizarrely asserted that moving from Iowa to a spot near the Canadian border in 1985 was part of Weaver’s plot. After an Idaho jury largely exonerated the defendants, federal judge Edward Lodge slammed DOJ and FBI misconduct and fabrication of evidence in the case.
Regardless of the judge’s condemnation, FBI chief Louis Freeh in 1995 exonerated the FBI for its actions at Ruby Ridge. That year, after I slammed Freeh’s whitewash in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, Freeh denounced my “inflammatory and unfounded allegations.” Five months later, I snared a confidential 542-page Justice Department report on Ruby Ridge, excerpting its damning findings in a Wall Street Journal piece. The coverup unraveled and the feds paid the Weaver family $3.1 million to settle their wrongful-death lawsuit. A top FBI official was sent to prison for destroying key evidence.
But the FBI sniper who killed Vicki Weaver never faced justice. When Boundary County, Idaho, sought to prosecute Horiuchi in 1998, the Clinton administration invoked the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution (which blocks local and state governments from challenging federal power) to torpedo their lawsuit. Solicitor General Seth Waxman absolved the sniper because “federal law-enforcement officials are privileged to do what would otherwise be unlawful if done by a private citizen.”
While that claim may sway federal judges, it often fails to charm jurors. A Justice Department brief in the Bundy case revealed that prosecutors dreaded jury nullification – “not guilty” verdicts due to government abuses. That specter spurred prosecutors to withhold key evidence from both the court and the defense counsel, resulting in a mistrial and dismissal of charges.
Judge Navarro rightly declared that “a universal sense of justice has been violated” by federal misconduct in the Bundy trial. Americans’ trust in the FBI and Justice Department will not be restored until those agencies are compelled to obey the law and the Constitution. Until that happens, federal prosecutors should continue fearing verdicts from Americans who refuse to convict those whom the feds wrongfully vilify.
James Bovard is a USA Today columnist and the author of 10 books, including “Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty” (St. Martin’s Press, 1994).
----------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- -----------------------
New post on Free Range Report
Flashback: Ammon Bundy explains video of BLM agents burning private ranches
by editor
In this video, which was taken in the summer of 2015, less than two weeks after the Hammonds were sentenced to prison for 'arson,' Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agents were recorded setting fires which destroyed private ranch properties and burned and killed numerous cattle. This video documents a horrendous display of cruelty and disregard for life and private property .
Video posted by Gavin Seim
Originally posted on December 5, 2015
Ammon Bundy explains the case of the Hammonds and their unjust imprisonment on specious terrorism charges. It was the Hammonds' case which ignited what many call the Oregon Standoff, the peaceful occupation by ranchers of the abandoned Malheur Refuge in January of 2016, in protest of the extreme punishment imposed on the Oregon ranchers.
In this video, which was taken in the summer of 2015, less than two weeks after the Hammonds were sentenced to prison for 'arson,' Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agents were recorded setting fires which destroyed private ranch properties and burned and killed numerous cattle. This video documents a horrendous display of cruelty and disregard for life and private property. What's more, the BLM agents in this video were never held to account for the death and destruction caused by their actions, yet Dwight and Steve Hammond sit in federal prison today, serving out sentences for minor, unintentional damage caused by their own prescribed burns.
The agents setting fires in this video were being directed by Obama's Interior Department, and then-BLM Director, Neil Kornze, a hard-core anti-grazing operative under whose leadership atrocities including Operation Cerberus and the Bundy Ranch raid occurred. In 2018 there is new leadership in D.C., and it appears that the voices of ranchers and advocates of private property and good stewardship are being heard, but more has to be done. It's time for President Trump to grant clemency to the Hammonds, end their suffering, and free them to return to their families and beloved ranches.
ETC. ETC. ETC.
Avalon Project - General Orders No. 100 : The Lieber Code
The Law of War
General Orders No. 100: The Lieber Code
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIELD
Where Not Throwing Oppression Off, You Live Either Under an Occupation or by Conquest.
You'll know them by what they do.
Your silence is their permission.
Behind The Woodshed | Real Liberty Media
