As for conclusion based investigations in Oregon, I know all about how that works. It's pretty much how my last years of time in the National Guard went. The state dictated a conclusion they wanted to support and that was that.

By the time the Feds got involved, there was little question until it required certain levels of expert consensus and those experts got worried about paperwork not looking right when it would eventually be audited by the bean counters back east.

When I saw the same judge being brought in on the Bundy case, I figured they would be doing a similar game. She never was a judge or attorney outside the state of Oregon, she had been a local judge, then law school professor and put on the federal bench in the local district.