Finally, some good news for once.

Cliven Bundy walks free as federal judge dismisses Bundy Ranch standoff case

Robert Anglen, The Republic | azcentral.com

LAS VEGAS � Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his two sons and a militia member will not face a retrial on charges that they led an armed rebellion against federal agents in 2014.

A federal judge on Monday said the federal prosecutors' conduct was "outrageous" and "violated due process rights" of the defendants.

U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro dismissed the charges against the four men "with prejudice," meaning they cannot face trial again. She said a new trial would not be sufficient to address the problems in the case and would provide the prosecution with an unfair advantage going forward.

The judge criticized both the prosecution and the FBI for not providing evidence to the defense as required under court rules. "The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated," Navarro said.

Navarro said it was clear the FBI was involved in the prosecution of the case, and that it was not a coincidence that most of the withheld evidence came from the FBI.

She said the prosecution's reliance on the FBI and failure to look beyond the documents the FBI provided represented an "intentional abdication of its responsibility." Essentially, she said the prosecution decided not to follow up because the evidence would have worked in the Bundys' favor.

As the courtroom doors opened after Navarro's ruling, a huge cheer went up from the crowd of spectators gathered outside.

Navarro's decision comes less than a month after she declared a mistrial in the case and found federal prosecutors willfully withheld critical and "potentially exculpatory" evidence from the defense.



Cliven Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy, and militia member Ryan Payne were all in court. Cliven Bundy had remained in jail until the hearing; the judge ordered his immediate release and he walked out of the courthouse shortly after.

Navarro on Dec. 20 cited six pieces of evidence the Nevada U.S. Attorney's Office failed to disclose that was favorable to the defense and could have changed the outcome of the trial.

The evidence included:

Records about surveillance at the Bundy ranch;
Maps about government surveillance;
Records about the presence of government snipers;
FBI logs about activity at the ranch in the days leading up to the standoff;
Law-enforcement assessments dating to 2012 that found the Bundys posed no threat;
Internal affairs reports about misconduct by Bureau of Land Management agents.

"Failure to turn over such evidence violates due process," Navarro said last month. "A fair trial at this point is impossible."

Prosecutors urged judge for retrial

Former Acting Nevada U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre, who led the prosecution, had urged the judge in a Dec. 29 motion to allow his office to retry the case.

Prosecutors said Bundy conspired with militia groups and anti-government protesters to block a lawful roundup of his cattle from public lands. He said defendants had wrongly tried to turn the case into a civil-rights issue and improperly tried to allege they acted in self-defense.

Myhre said his office did not intentionally violate so-called Brady rules about turning over evidence. He said the failure to turn over evidence was inadvertent and did not represent "flagrant government misconduct."

The motion was the first time Myhre publicly addressed the judge's findings about suppressed evidence.

"The government�s belated disclosure of these materials is not so grossly shocking or outrageous as to violate the universal sense of justice," he wrote.

He said prosecutors genuinely did not believe they had to turn over evidence based on previous court rulings. He also said some documents were accidentally overlooked among the hundreds of thousands of pages prosecutors turned over to defense lawyers.

Defense lawyers had sought to have the case dismissed and their clients freed from the chance of being tried again.

They said recently revealed documents provided critical evidence that would have allowed them to challenge the government's charges, impeach government witnesses and lay the foundation for self-defense claims.

They said a retrial would have given the government an unfair advantage, allowing them to build arguments based on defense strategies that were laid out in the first trial.

Defense lawyers maintained prosecutors acted recklessly and got caught. They said Myhre's admission that he violated court rules "should be viewed as too little and too late."
Ammon and Ryan Bundy walk outside the federal courthouse in Las Vegas to cheers on Dec. 20, 2017. Robert Anglen/The Republic
A series of trial twists

The mistrial was the latest in a chain of failures by federal prosecutors, who have been unable to secure clear victories against the Bundys and their supporters during three trials in Nevada and another in Oregon.

Navarro delayed the trial before the jury was seated to hear opening statements in November.

She suspended the trial again in December and warned of a potential mistrial after prosecutors for the first time disclosed several documents that appeared to support defense claims about the government's use of video surveillance and sniper teams during the standoff.

Navarro said last month that it didn't matter if the failure to disclose was intentional or inadvertent. But she detailed several instances where prosecutors denied evidence existed and used hyperbole to mock defense requests for information.

For instance, she said, prosecutors derided defense requests for a BLM internal affairs report into misconduct as a "bright shiny object ... that did not exist."

But documents later showed an internal investigation had taken place, and had found misconduct.

Navarro pointed out that during two previous trials of militia members who supported Bundy, prosecutors insisted there was no evidence that video surveillance and sniper teams were in use around the Bundy Ranch prior to the the standoff.

Prosecutors charged defendants with making false claims about snipers and videos to incite their supporters in the runup to the standoff. But documents that surfaced after the start of the trial last month showed there were tactical teams and multiple video cameras positioned around the ranch.

Navarro said assessments written by federal agents that dismissed the Bundys as a threat as early as 2012 were not turned over to the defense. Navarro said these reports could have been used to challenge prosecution claims.

One undated BLM report described the Bundys as non-violent, Navarro said, quoting: "They might get into your face, but they won't get into a shootout."

Navarro said since the Oct. 1 discovery deadline, when prosecutors were required to turn over all material evidence to the defense, the prosecutors turned over 3,300 pages of additional documents. She said much of that has occurred since the start of trial.

Federal agents face misconduct claims

Navarro's ruling for a mistrial did not take into account another document turned over to the defense in December and leaked on pro-Bundy websites that raises more criticism of the BLM's conduct and use of force during the standoff.

A federal investigator alleged in a Nov. 27 memo to the assistant U.S. attorney general that prosecutors in the Bundy ranch standoff trial covered up misconduct by law-enforcement agents who engaged in "likely policy, ethical and legal violations."

In an 18-page memo, Special Agent Larry Wooten said he "routinely observed ... a widespread pattern of bad judgment, lack of discipline, incredible bias, unprofessionalism and misconduct" among agents involved in the 2014 standoff.

He said his investigation indicated federal agents used excessive force and committed civil-rights and policy violations.

Bundy trial could impact public lands

The standoff at the Nevada ranch of Cliven Bundy (seen in a 2014 photo) pitted cattle ranchers, anti-government protesters and militia members against the Bureau of Land Management.

The standoff at the Nevada ranch of Cliven Bundy (seen in a 2014 photo) pitted cattle ranchers, anti-government protesters and militia members against the Bureau of Land Management. (Photo: AP )

The Bundy Ranch standoff became one of the most high-profile land-use cases in modern Western history. It pitted cattle ranchers, anti-government protesters and militia members against the Bureau of Land Management.

For decades, the Bureau of Land Management ordered Cliven Bundy to remove his cattle from federal lands, and in 2014 the agency obtained a court order to seize his cattle as payment for more than $1 million in unpaid grazing fees.

The Bundys launched a social-media rallying cry. Hundreds of supporters, including members of several militia groups, converged on the Bundys' ranch.

For many Americans, images of the four-day standoff in a dusty wash below Interstate 15 northeast of Las Vegas were shocking. Protesters, ranchers and militia members took armed positions around federal law-enforcement officers, some lying prone on freeway overpasses and sighting down long rifles.

Federal agents abandoned the roundup, saying they were outgunned and in fear for their lives.

The standoff was hailed as a victory by militia members. Ammon and Ryan Bundy later cited their success at Bundy Ranch in the run-up to another protest of BLM policies, the siege of an Oregon wildlife refuge in 2016. An Oregon federal jury acquitted Ammon and Ryan Bundy and five others in October 2016.

19 people initially charged in standoff

The government in 2016 charged 19 people for their roles in the standoff.

Myhre and his team described the Bundys and supporters as vigilantes, willing to risk a gunbattle in defiance of lawful court orders.

The Bundys, Payne and other defendants were charged with 15 felonies, including conspiracy, obstruction of justice, extortion, using firearms in the commission of crimes, assault and threatening federal officers.

After the initial charges, two of the 19 men took plea deals. Trials for the remaining 17 defendants were broken into three tiers based on their alleged levels of culpability.

Four more defendants have since taken plea deals.

But making a solid case against Bundy and his supporters has eluded prosecutors. Two federal juries in Las Vegas have rejected conspiracy claims against six defendants in earlier trials.

A jury in April deadlocked on charges against four of the first six defendants. It convicted Gregory Burleson of Arizona and Todd Engel of Idaho on weapons and obstruction charges but dismissed all of the conspiracy charges.

Ryan Bundy, who served as his own lawyer, asked Navarro if the government's misconduct would result in overturning the convictions of Burleson and Engel.

Navarro said those issues would need to be addressed separately.

Numerous video interviews with the Bundy's at this link.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/new...etried-federal-court-ruling/1008051001/

Later tonight I will have much more to post on this.

So with a judge acknowledging the wrong doings of federal procecuters,will they be held accountible for there miss deeds or get promotions?
What about the bundies and others that lost there time and monies?

Mak, you know how it will play out.

The fbi hit squad who murdered Lavoy Finicum were caught read handed lying and hiding evidence and nada damn thing was done about it.

Cliven Bundy-FBI debacle: Another example of why the feds need to be leashed

James Bovard

The FBI's sordid history of withholding and destroying key evidence deserves a reckoning.

The Justice Department was caught in another high-profile travesty last month that continues to reverberate through the western states. On Dec. 20, federal judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial in the case against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and others after prosecutors were caught withholding massive amounts of evidence undermining federal charges. This is the latest in a long series of federal law enforcement debacles that have spurred vast distrust of Washington.

Bundy, a 71-year old Nevadan rancher, and his sons and supporters were involved in an armed standoff with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) beginning in 2014 stemming from decades of unpaid cattle grazing fees and restrictions. The Bundys have long claimed the feds were on a vendetta against them, and 3,300 pages of documents the Justice Department wrongfully concealed from their lawyers provides smoking guns that buttress their case.

A whistleblowing memo by BLM chief investigator Larry Wooten charges that BLM chose "the most intrusive, oppressive, large scale and militaristic trespass cattle (seizure) possible'' against Bundy. He also cited a "widespread pattern of bad judgment, lack of discipline, incredible bias, unprofessionalism and misconduct, as well as likely policy, ethical and legal violations" by BLM officials in the case. BLM agents even "bragged about roughing up Dave Bundy, grinding his face into the ground and Dave Bundy having little bits of gravel stuck in his face'' while he was videotaping federal agents. Wooten also stated that anti-Mormon prejudice pervaded BLM's crackdown.

The feds charged the Bundys with conspiracy in large part because the ranchers summoned militia to defend them after they claimed that FBI snipers had surrounded their ranch. Justice Department lawyers scoffed at this claim in prior trials involving the standoff but newly-released documents confirm that snipers were in place prior to the Bundy�s call for help.

The feds also belatedly turned over multiple threat assessments which revealed that the Bundys were not violent or dangerous, including an FBI analysis that concluded that BLM was "trying to provoke a conflict" with the Bundys. As an analysis in the left-leaning Intercept observed, federal missteps in this case �fueled longstanding perceptions among the right-wing groups and militias that the federal government is an underhanded institution that will stop at nothing to crush the little guy and cover up its own misdeeds.�

Judge Navarro will hold a hearing on Jan. 8 on whether to dismiss all charges or require a new trial. But federal prosecutors have insisted that, regardless of the latest disclosures, the judge should prohibit the Bundys from claiming the feds provoked the confrontation or that the Bundys acted in self-defense. Steven Myrhe, the lead federal attorney, declared: "The Court needs to put a stop to these illegal theories and defenses in order for the government to receive a fair trial. The government, too, is entitled to a fair trial."

But fair trials are the last thing that high-profile federal targets such as the Bundys are likely to receive. In the early 1990s, the federal government decided to take down Randy Weaver, an outspoken white separatist living on a mountaintop in northern Idaho. After Weaver was entrapped by a federal agent, U.S. Marshals trespassed on Weaver's land and killed his son. The Justice Department claimed that Weaver conspired to have an armed confrontation with the government. Bizarrely, the feds claimed that his moving from Iowa to near the Canadian border in 1983 was part of that plot. After a jury found Weaver not guilty on all major charges, federal Judge Edward Lodge issued a lengthy catalog of the Justice Department�s and FBI�s misconduct and fabrication of evidence in the case. A top FBI official was later sent to prison for destroying key evidence in the case.

The Justice Department also did the conspiracy/suppression of evidence two-step against the Branch Davidians in Waco. A grand jury indictment accused 11 Davidians who survived 1993 federal assaults on their home of conspiring "with malice aforethought" to kill Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agents. The ATF's decision to launch a frontal attack on their home somehow proved that the residents sought an �armed confrontation.� Prosecutors compared Davidian leader David Koresh to Hitler and Stalin and denounced defendants as "religious terrorists." But a jury rejected the most serious charges against the Davidian defendants, which the New York Times characterized as a "stunning defeat" for the federal government. Five years later, Americans learned that, contrary to Justice Department assertions, FBI attackers fired pyrotechnic grenades into the Davidians� property before a massive fire erupted that left 80 people dead.

In the Bundy case, Judge Navarro slammed the FBI for withholding key evidence. Unfortunately, this seems to be standard procedure for the FBI � including in their investigations of both the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton presidential campaigns as well as the Las Vegas shooter who slaughtered concert goers last October. FBI officials have also been caught routinely twisting the truth to burnish prosecutions. False FBI trial testimony may have helped sentence 32 innocent people to death, as the Washington Post reported in 2015. How many other innocent people have been put behind bars because of federal misconduct?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is ordering a formal investigation into how the Justice Department went awry in Nevada. Until the feds cease wrongfully abusing their targets, there will be no rebound in trust in Washington. If the Trump administration cannot rein in renegade federal prosecutors, the president should cease-and-desist any and all claptrap about �draining the swamp.�

James Bovard, author of Attention Deficit Democracy, is a member of USA TODAY�s Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @JimBovard.

The way this played out,it's like the old saying. Shake the tree to see what hits the ground.
Funny how jade helm15 was around same time frame.

The Bundy Affair #25

Steven Myhre and His Fraud upon the Court

Gary Hunt
Outpost of Freedom
January 2, 2018

Recent events in Las Vegas have led to a completely new perspective on the misdeeds of government. Failure to provide timely Discovery, especially that of an exculpatory evidence (proving innocence or to impeach witness testimony).

As Judge Gloria Navarro pointed out in the seven know violations, six of them were deemed �willful�, where the seventh could possibly be inadvertent. However, in the closed session that followed the declaration of a Mistrial, there may have been as many as 20 more violations of either Brady or Giglio. Those cases establish precedence with regard to the timely disclosure of evidence to the Defense.

Before we proceed, perhaps reviews of the timeline of primary events in this case are necessary:

The events that are addressed in the Indictment occurred in the first half of April 2014.
The initial Indictment was February 3, 2016.
The Superseding Indictment was issued March 2, 2016.
The current trial, now on hold pending a decision with regard to Mistrial or Dismissal, began in late November 2017.

The Government�s Response to recent motions by Ryan Payne, suggesting Dismissal, and Ryan Bundy, demanding Dismissal, begins as follows:

�As with any large case, this multi-agency, multi-defendant, multi-trial case has presented significant discovery challenges: hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of hours of video and audio recordings, and thousands of emails, to name a few, balanced against factors such as witness security and disclosure procedures acceptable to the Court. This complexity notwithstanding, and ever mindful of its Constitutional, statutory, Department, and Court-ordered discovery obligations, the government has always strived to meet these challenges with diligence, fairness, and efficiency.

First, let�s put a little perspective on timing. It was 23 months from the event (1) that led to the Superseding Indictment (3). It was another 14 months to the commencement of the trial (4). That is 37 months, or, 3 years and 1 month. However, they had the initial Indictment (2) and then modified it to the Superseding Indictment (3), in a month. You would think that in those 23 months, they would have reviewed the records that they had to assure that they were truthful in what the presented to the Grand Jury, for both the initial Indictment and the Superseding Indictment.

And, most assuredly, they would not have accused the Bundy supporters of lying to the public about calling people to come to the Ranch because the government had snipers and posed a threat to the Bundys, knowing full well that they did have snipers and an FBI SWAT team in place, three days before Ryan Payne arrived at the Ranch.

The continued to lie, through the first two trial and into the current trial, claiming that there were no snipers however, the conspired to �wash� some documents of record by having a more senior FBI Special Agent, who is also the FBI agent that is assisting the US Attorney in the current trial. See The Bundy Affair #24 � FBI and Prosecution Conspire to Falsify Evidence.

Next, let�s consider the government�s explanation that no harm was done by not providing the information required by both law and the Rules of the Court. From the last paragraph, page 7/55

.

[T]he government�s belated disclosure of these materials is not so grossly shocking or outrageous as to violate the universal sense of justice. Rather, the late disclosures stem from the government�s good-faith reliance on its understanding of its discovery obligations, as informed by its reasonable interpretation of the governing law on available affirmative defenses, and supported by Court orders on these subjects. The government did not withhold material to gain a tactical advantage or harm the defendants. Rather, it litigated these issues in good faith, arguing that the materials were neither helpful nor material, and provided reasoned explanations for its decisions. Although the Court disagreed with the government�s legal reasoning and ordered disclosure, a legal error by the government�remedied immediately upon having the benefit of the Court�s ruling�does not equate with misconduct, let alone flagrant misconduct.

However, it did not immediately remedy the failure to disclose based on Ryan Bundy�s motion specific to the snipers and cameras.

Then, we can look at the very next paragraph in the government�s Response, which seems to contradict their assertions in the previous paragraph. From the first paragraph, page 8/55

The Brady violations found by the Court are regrettable and benefit no one. But because the government neither flagrantly violated nor recklessly disregarded its obligations, the appropriate remedy for such violations is a new trial. That remedy is particularly appropriate here because it will cure all three areas of prejudice alleged by the defendants. Namely, a new trial will provide opportunities to develop different voir dire questions and peremptory challenges, and craft stronger opening statements and cross-examinations in light of the recently produced materials.

Well, if it did not give the government �a tactical advantage�, why would they admit that three elements of the Defense strategy would change, now that the information is made available to the Defense?

Now, Steven Myhre, United States Attorney for the District of Nevada (and doesn�t like to have his picture taken), cannot say that he doesn�t know what the consequences are � or claim that he wasn�t aware of his responsibility, since he was involved in the 2006 United States v. Chapman mistrial. True, he wasn�t involved in that case until 6 months after the Mistrial (contrary to what others have reported) and subsequent Dismissal to the Indictment. He came on board to handle the more ministerial aspects of dealing with the plea agreements and guilty pleas that were based on the then Dismissed Indictment. Each one had to have a Motion, a Response, and an Order, to clear the record � which we fully expect to have happen in the current Bundy case, once the Indictment is Dismissed.

It is possible that since he came on after the fact, that he could argue that he wasn�t fully cognizant of what happened that lead to the Mistrial/Dismissal, if it stopped there. However, that is not the case.

The government sought to appeal the Dismissal to the Ninth Circuit. Steven Myhre was the lead attorney in the Appeal. As such, he would have had to bone up on the entire case so as to be able to argue for the Ninth to overturn the lower court decision to Dismiss. As such, he had to know as much, or more, than the attorneys who had botched the trial case. However, the Ninth rightfully upheld the lower court�s Dismissal of the Indictment.

Steven Myhre has no excuse, in the world, to claim a lack of knowledge on what is both in Rules of the Court and case law (Brady and Giglio) regarding disclosure. In the Chapman case, the prosecuting attorney brought the information forward, after deceiving both the Court and the Defense. However, the lies ceased when the information was delivered to the Court and the Defendants. In the current case, the lies continued and denial of the existence of some records was excused, as Myhre claimed in the opening paragraph, above. But, not nearly to the extent that has happened in the Bundy trial, especially considering that it is the third trial, costing enormous amounts of the court�s time and many millions of dollars of taxpayer money, in what can be describe in minimal terms as a fraud upon the Court and the Defendants. A criminal act that would have you or me behind bars for many years, should we have been found guilty of what Myhre was paid to do.

Rather ironically, the Chapman case was heard in courtroom 7C, as was the Bundy trial However, the degree of violations in the Bundy trial are far more egregious than those in the Chapman case, and therefore warrant, at least, the degree of judicial discretion as was applied in the Chapman case, meaning Dismissal of the Indictment.

The prosecuting attorneys in this country have become what used to be referred to as the Grand Inquisitor, in the time of the Inquisitions. The assume that the King can do no wrong, and they consider themselves to be the King�s representatives. This, then, assumes that anything that goes against their narrative must simply disappear. Otherwise, well, the King might be doing wrong. And, it was through the diligence of Ryan Bundy, and his cross-examination of witnesses that the hidden disclosure began to open up, eventually becoming a landslide of documents, eight of which are included in the exhibits of the Government�s Response, linked above.

The concept that the Founders had when they wrote the Constitution expected that those in government would be honest and have the highest degree of integrity � That they were expected to be above the average person on the street. Now, we find that the have less integrity than those on the street, though the average person would be in prison, should he do what these government employees do.

How can we respect our government when it has so little regard for the Constitution, the laws, the people, or Justice?

So in a nut shell .gov Created a problem. The reaction was to see how many Patriots would come out of the wood work. Attempt to provoke an insident by the patriots didn't come to fruitation. So as next step is to arrest and hold them. Which wasted the Patriots time and money.
All the while .gov employees that are involved still get paid by tax dollors knowing they are doing wrong.
So nothing changes surprise surprise.

Todd Engel sentenced to 14 years in federal prison.



Onward and upward,
airforce

Disgusting.