Cliven Bundy Trial Underway After Government Conduct Forced Delay

The start of the long-awaited trial of rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons, and an associate, is finally underway after a week-long delay. The men are charged with taking part in an armed conspiracy to stop federal agents from doing their job in a 2014 standoff in Bunkerville.

Judge Gloria Navarro had delayed the start one week to give prosecutors a chance to determine whether they have recordings from a surveillance camera that the FBI had set up across from Bundy's ranch in 2014.

"If it has potentially useful information then the defense is entitled to it," Navarro said. "I'm not convinced that it doesn't exist."

The start of the trial stemming from the 2014 standoff at Bunkerville was already delayed last month because of the October 1 shooting that killed 58 and left hundreds wounded.

The standoff happened when Bureau of Land Management agents, looking to seize 1,000 cattle from Bundy because he refused to pay grazing fees for 20 years, were forced to retreat when the Bundys were joined by hundreds of supporters, many heavily armed and some set up as snipers from an overpass.

The government had long said there was no surveillance camera. It was only last Friday in a pretrial hearing that they conceded there had been a camera.

One of the prosecutors said they have turned over all video surveillance that they are "aware of or in possession of."

Ryan Bundy, one of Cliven's son and representing himself, told the judge that just because the prosecutor isn' aware of surveillance tape doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

This trial, which is expected to last four months and could involve hundreds of witnesses, is one of the highest profile cases involving land rights.

After a brief delay Tuesday morning with prosecutors asking for a little more time and the defense again asking to a mistrial, opening arguments got underway.

While prosecutors have tried to paint this case – and others involving the Bundy family and their supporters in Nevada and Oregon – as a simple fact of people using weapons to prevent government agents from doing their job, defense lawyers have painted their clients as political protesters speaking out against government overreach.

The Bunkerville retreat emboldened the Bundys and in February 2016, Ammon and Ryan Bundy and other supporters seized control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.

A standoff there lasted 41 days and ended with the Bundy brothers being sent to jail.

On Feb. 10, Cliven flew to Portland to visit his incarcerated sons, but the FBI was waiting him at the airport. They sent him to Nevada, where prosecutors finally filed charges, and Cliven joined his boys behind bars.

Prosecutors in both states saw this as the simple crux of both cases: just because you disagree with the law doesn't mean that you don't have to obey it.
Cliven and his followers see it differently.

They think the federal government has no right to control the Oregon refuge lands where Cliven let his cattle graze. In court papers, Cliven's lawyers compare him to Martin Luther King Jr. and allude to the standoff during the March on Selma that King led in 1965.

Control of the land is an issue that brings out strong emotions on both sides in Nevada and Oregon. In Nevada, the issue has been central in variety of incidents, from the treatment of wild horses to an ongoing dispute between the state and federal governments over plans to place nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
And, of course, the 2014 standoff at Bunkerville.

When he first appeared in court, Cliven refused to enter a plea and said he didn't recognize the court's authority. Similarly defiant, Ammon and Ryan said they believed the federal government had no right to control the land and that, in fact, federal control of the land is illegal.

While prosecutors in Oregon and Nevada have been able to get some of those charged to plead guilty pre-trial, they have had little luck convincing jurors when the cases go to trial.

Ammon, Ryan and five others were acquitted in Oregon. It was a verdict, just days before the election of President Donald Trump, that left prosecutors stunned and acutely aware that things were changing.

From a presentation in Oregon that some considered overly complicated to the delayed release of information to the defense that probably should have been turned over earlier, the government has not always helped its own case.

There were two examples of that emerged Friday. For the first time in three years, the federal government disclosed it had set up a surveillance camera that relayed a live feed of people coming and going from the Bundy Ranch. It also admitted shredding documents with information on resources and operational details.

Prosecutors will argue that the Bundys and Payne conspired to stop federal agents from doing their jobs, while the defense will contend that their actions were a lawful protest against what they felt was government oversight of the fact that the federal government has no right to control public land.

Both sides will make their case to the jurors who were picked last week after four days of questioning. Sixteen people – seven women and nine men – were chosen from a pool of about 150. Twelve will serve on the jury, with four as alternates.

All of the jurors had to fill out two questionnaires: a standard one about their background and beliefs on issues such as guns and protests and another about the Oct. 1 massacre in Las Vegas that left 58 dead, hundreds wounded and prompted a three-week delay in the trial.

It will be closely watched by people up and down the political spectrum — from Trump associate Roger Stone, who has called for the Bundys to be pardoned, to environmental groups that fear acquittal of the Bundys will embolden those who ignore federal restrictions on the land.

"I hope you can see what we've been pushing for," Ammon Bundy's lawyer in the Oregon trial told jurors. "What do you see? Government overreach.

"The government going too far."

Photos of Ammon and Cliven Bundy courtesy the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office.