Oregon Standoff Is Part of "Extreme Movement to Seize Public Lands" Says Interior Secretary

The 41-day armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is part of "an extreme movement to seize public lands," Secretary of the Interior Sally jewell said in a speech Tuesday.

"This movement has propped up dangerous voices that reject the rule of law, put communities and hard-working public servants at risk, and fail to appreciate how deeply democratic and American our national parks and public lands are," she said.

More than two dozen people have been indicted in connection with the takeover.

One of them, Tarvis Cox, was arrested last week in Utah and is expected to be extradited to Portland.

Meanwhile, a second co-defendant, Kenneth Medenbach, was convicted in Federal Court in a separate case on Tuesday.

Medenbach had been charged with unlawfully camping on federal public land in Josephine County last year.

As he is in the Malheur case, Medenbach was representing himself.

He faces a year in prison in that case.

Meanwhile, in another development in the #OregonStandoff case, a third defendant, Corey Lequieu, argued that he should be allowed out of jail pending trial.

Prosecutors argued that he should continue to stay in jail because he isa threat and was one of the organizers of the takeover.

"Evidence at trial will show that he was a planner and organizer of the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge," they wrote in court papers. "Defendant Lequieu has a long-standing animus toward the federal government"

Photo of Corey Lequieu from court filings.