Oregon Standoff Trial: Ammon Bundy Says He Came to Help Ranchers

"I was able to see our local government stand up for the people and restore their rights and protect them."

That was Ammon Bundy during his second day of testimony in Portland Federal Court where he is one of seven people on trial for charges stemming from the 41-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Bundy, who was considered the leader of the occupation, discussed in detail how his experience at Bunkerville, Nevada - where he and his father had an armed standoff with agents from the Bureau of Land Management- had shaped his expectations of what might happen in Burns.

He believed that - as in Bunkerville they would find support from the local sheriff.

"We were there to get the sheriff to stand for the Hammonds," he said of the father and son ranchers who had been convicted of setting fires on federal land. "That was it."

He told jurors that he never threatened or gave ultimatums to Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward.

Bundy testified that when he came to Oregon to protest the Hammonds being sent to prison, he had not intended to take over the refuge, that it was something decided on the morning that it happened.