![\"Ammon](\"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Ammon-and-Ryan-Bundy-1024x737.jpg\")
<\/h1>\nby Scott Rohter, August 2016<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Webster defines a conspiracy as a secret agreement to perform a wrongful or unlawful act. There are many different kinds of conspiracies, but they all\u00a0contain two\u00a0basic elements\u2026 They all include\u00a0an element of secrecy and they all include the intent to do harm. They all begin with a\u00a0fundamental desire to commit evil for some personal gain. No one has ever been indicted for planning a conspiracy to do good. That is no one until Ammon and Ryan Bundy. They are prisoners of conscience in an unconscionable prison…\u00a0 As attorney Matt Schindler said in his closing argument. “Conspiracies don’t usually result in a prominent member of Congress getting up on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and giving a speech about the government’s abuse of power. People who engage in conspiracies\u00a0always do so for some personal gain. I have seen no evidence\u00a0that anyone who participated in the occupation\u00a0of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge did so for any kind of personal gain.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Ammon and Ryan Bundy are two of twenty-six defendants charged by the Obama Administration with conspiracy to impede\u00a0Federal officers. This charge carries a long prison sentence if they are found guilty. They have already been locked up in an Oregon jail for over six months without a trial. Even\u00a0the basic\u00a0presumption of their innocence has been\u00a0flagrantly violated by the United States\u00a0government.. If they are convicted\u00a0of conspiracy they could be looking at a possible prison sentence of\u00a0six years or more. It\u2019s a severe punishment for merely pointing out to the Federal government that it isn\u2019t following the Constitution\u00a0respecting the administration of our\u00a0 public lands.<\/p>\n The Bundys and their co-defendants who\u00a0refer to\u00a0themselves the Committee for Constitutional Freedom<\/em> have elevated the issue of\u00a0our\u00a0public lands to the forefront of\u00a0national attention with\u00a0their peaceful takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in\u00a0Oregon. It was peaceful at least until the FBI and the Oregon State Police opened fire on the protestors. The occupation of the Refuge which had been closed for\u00a0the holiday season\u00a0lasted for about forty days. It\u00a0only turned violent when the FBI set up a roadblock and fired upon the protestors as they drove to a meeting in a nearby city.\u00a0 Two Oregon State police officers shot Lavoy Finicum in the back and then refused to provide the timely medical assistance\u00a0which would have allowed him to live. The protestors never fired their weapons even when they were being fired upon. They never\u00a0 pointed their weapons at anyone at the Refuge and they never intimidated any government employees because there were no government employees ever at the refuge during the entire time the\u00a0 protestors\u00a0were there. The Refuge was closed\u00a0for the\u00a0season and it remained closed after members of the community of Burns Oregon\u00a0learned that the Hammonds\u00a0had been\u00a0ordered back to jail\u00a0and that the government had\u00a0obtained the first right of refusal\u00a0to purchase\u00a0their ranch if and when they ever decided to sell it. The time\u00a0 the defendants\u00a0spent at the Refuge\u00a0was forty days and forty nights. That was forty days and forty nights\u00a0that\u00a0some very\u00a0sincere and loyal American patriots volunteered to\u00a0spend in the wilderness away from their families and friends in order to advance\u00a0the cause of State\u00a0sovereignty and State ownership of\u00a0public land.<\/p>\n Almost 700 million acres of\u00a0land\u00a0has been confiscated from\u00a0the twelve\u00a0western States\u00a0to join the Union starting with California in 1850. This\u00a0violates the Equal Footing Principle<\/em> by which all States that entered the Union were supposed to be admitted on the same basis as all of the other States. During the administration of Theodore Roosevelt this confiscated land\u00a0was transformed into National Parks and Monuments under the control of Congress. Many Americans including the Bundy family would like to see these lands returned to the States from which they were taken so the people\u00a0who live\u00a0in these States\u00a0can decide for themselves how to manage their own land.\u00a0 No where in the United States Constitution does it give the Federal government the the power or right to own such vast amounts of\u00a0land\u2026 Congress\u00a0administers\u00a0more than\u00a0700 million acres of land in twelve Western States. The amount of land\u00a0controlled by Congress through just two federal bureaucracies \u00a0(the U.S. Forest Service and\u00a0the Bureau of Land Management) is larger than\u00a0most countries. There are only twelve countries in the whole world\u00a0that are larger than the amount of land controlled by those two federal agencies.<\/p>\n To charge the Bundys and the other protestors at the Refuge who spontaneously and peacefully occupied the deserted Refuge with a conspiracy is to lend a new meaning to the word conspiracy… A Conspiracy\u00a0is defined as\u00a0“a secret agreement to commit a wrongful or unlawful act.”<\/em>\u00a0 The key words\u00a0in the definition are secret<\/strong> and wrongful.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0The defendants never harmed anyone and they never intended to harm anyone or do anything wrong. On the contrary the government is the only one doing\u00a0anything wrong. The only people who harmed anyone were the\u00a0FBI agents and the Oregon State Police who\u00a0shot Lavoy Finicum in the back and then just left him to bleed to death. By definition, the defendants are not guilty of any conspiracy. The Government is.<\/p>\n The defendants never did anything in secret which is\u00a0the key element of any conspiracy. Everything they\u00a0did was out in the open for the whole world to see. Every\u00a0facet of their\u00a0act of civil disobedience\u00a0was covered by\u00a0media from all over the world. Nothing\u00a0they\u00a0did was\u00a0done in secret. Journalists from around the world converged on the little town of Burns to\u00a0cover every aspect of the occupation from the\u00a0very beginning to the\u00a0very end, and this was exactly what the defendants\u00a0wanted.\u00a0 They didn’t want secrecy. They wanted the whole world to know what they were doing. They wanted everyone to know that the United States government is occupying 700 million acres of State land unconstitutionally and\u00a0therefor\u00a0illegally. They wanted to\u00a0stage a peaceful event that would\u00a0catch the imagination of the whole\u00a0nation\u00a0and focus the attention of millions of Americans on the overreach of the Federal government and the egregious land use policies of the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service.<\/p>\n Since the defendants never did anything in secret they\u00a0can not be guilty of\u00a0a conspiracy.<\/p>\n According to definition a conspiracy\u00a0includes the intent to do harm,\u00a0 to commit wrong, or to break the law. Ammon and Ryan Bundy only intended to do good. On the contrary the Federal government is\u00a0breaking the law by continuing to\u00a0hang on to\u00a0half of the land in twelve western States. It is violating the Constitution by occupying 700 million acres of State land. It has been violating the Constitution\u00a0since\u00a01850\u00a0when\u00a0California became the first State west of the Rocky Mountains to join the Union. When it did so it was forced by Congress to relinquish control over 49% of\u00a0its land within its borders. One hundred and twenty six years later Congress passed the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976. This further exacerbated the already unlawful actions of Congress. The Federal government is continuing to break the\u00a0law by violating\u00a0the Constitution so by definition the President and the members of Congress are\u00a0the ones\u00a0guilty of a conspiracy.<\/p>\n Nowhere in the Constitution does the Federal government retain the power to control 700 million acres of State land. The\u00a0rather limited purposes\u00a0for which Congress\u00a0may exercise\u00a0control over any land are all clearly\u00a0enumerated in the Constitution, and they do not include many of the purposes\u00a0for which Congress now does so.<\/p>\n A conspiracy\u00a0has to\u00a0include the element of secrecy and the intent to do harm. Neither of these elements was present nor exhibited by any of the defendants during the entire 41 day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The fact that some of the defendants\u00a0had guns\u00a0at the Refuge doesn’t prove anything. They have a Constitutional right to possess firearms. The\u00a0purpose of the law\u00a0which\u00a0states that you can’t bring a firearm onto a federal facility is for the personal safety of the federal employees who\u00a0work there, but there were no federal employees\u00a0ever present\u00a0at the Refuge\u00a0during the entire time\u00a0that the defendants were there so a violation of the Federal firearms\u00a0statute is not even really relevant\u00a0.<\/p>\n The fact that none of the defendants ever pointed their guns at anyone or fired a shot is the real proof that they never intended to harm anyone.\u00a0 All of the shots\u00a0were fired by the FBI and\u00a0Oregon State Police officers including\u00a0the three shots that went straight into the back of an innocent\u00a055 year old man with thirteen children. Lavoy Finicum was murdered in cold blood. \u00a0The\u00a0government\u2019s claim\u00a0that Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five other defendants committed a\u00a0conspiracy is\u00a0without any merit, and\u00a0all the defendants\u00a0should be and were found to be not guilty.<\/p>\n UPDATE: All seven of the defendants in the first occupation trial of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge including the so called “leaders” of the conspiracy, Ammon and Ryan Bundy were found not guilty on all thirteen charges as well as on the\u00a0one count of possessing firearms on a federal facility. It remains to be seen what the Department of Justice will do with the next seven defendants scheduled to go on trial sometime in February on the same conspiracy and Federal firearms charges,\u00a0or what the government will do with the eleven defendants who already pled guilty under duress while in jail\u00a0and while being\u00a0threatened with long jail terms…<\/p>\n Webster defines a conspiracy as a secret agreement to perform a wrongful or unlawful act. There are many different kinds of conspiracies, but they all contain two basic elements. They all include an element of secrecy and they all include the intent to do harm. They all begin with a desire to commit evil for some personal gain. No one has ever been indicted for planning a conspiracy to do good. That is no one until Ammon and Ryan Bundy. They are prisoners of conscience in an unconscionable prison…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,6],"tags":[701,763,759,764,723],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9094"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10141,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9094\/revisions\/10141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Ammon-and-Ryan-Bundy-1.jpg\")