Good day all. Do you remember the incident with the Bundy’s? No, I don’t mean shoe salesman Al and worthless couch potato Peg, I’m speaking of the ranchers that triggered a major standoff with the Bureau of Land Management and about a thousand armed citizens.
I won’t bother going itno the details of the dispute. It ended peacefully when the BLM ran off with their tails tucked between their legs. Eventually, the Department of InJustice got around to charging the Bundy’s with everything under the sun. The Beltway Uniparty, along with the Mostly Stupid Media fully expected the Bundy’s to be shipped off to prison until the sun died. Well, that didn’t happen.
The judge in the case recently dismissed all the charges against the Bundy’s with prejudice. It seems the prosecutors were playing fast and loose with the evidence and the judge caught them at it. Here are the details from The Washington Times:
Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy could have spent the rest of his life in jail, but instead he walked away Monday, (January 8th), a free man, the case against him and his sons thrown out over what the judge decried as “outrageous” misconduct by federal prosecutors.
In a stunning rebuke, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Gloria Navarro scolded the prosecution for violating the due process rights of the four defendants — Cliven Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan, and Ryan Payne — and dismissed the case “with prejudice,” meaning they cannot be retried on felony conspiracy and firearms charges stemming from the 2014 Nevada standoff.
“The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated,” said Judge Navarro, appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2010, as reported by the Arizona Republic.
Wait, what? This was an Obama judge? And she upheld the constitution and the rule of law? How did she sneak past Obama’s political officers? The other Obama judges have no problem using the Rule of Law and the constitution for toilet paper if the case means trashing Obama’s “Legacy.”
“How am I feeling? Well, I tell you, I’ve got my sweetheart beside me and I’m feeling pretty good,” said Mr. Bundy in video posted by KSNV-TV in Las Vegas. “I’m not used to being free, let’s put it that way. I’ve been a political prisoner for right at 700 days today.”
He insisted, “I come in this courtroom an innocent man, and I leave an innocent man.”
The dismissal brought a dramatic close to the high-profile case three weeks after Judge Navarro declared a mistrial, citing the prosecution’s willful withholding of evidence related to the armed standoff with the Bureau of Land Management at the Bundy ranch near Bunkerville. The decision also comes as the latest and most devastating in a series of failures for the Justice Department in its ongoing battle against the Bundys and their supporters in trials in Nevada and Oregon.
There are several other cases pending against other defendants, but how those will pan out is not known. Considering the rather blatant actions by the DoJ, I think, unless there is other evidence I don’t know about, that these defendants will walk too. The DoJ’s outright criminal contempt for the constitution, the rule of law as well as the rules for handling evidence over the last few decades has been pretty bad.
Judge Navarro admonished the government for “flagrant prosecutorial misconduct” and withholding “potentially exculpatory” evidence, including FBI logs on surveillance and sniper activity, threat-assessment reports indicating that the Bundys were not dangerous, and internal reports about misconduct involving BLM agents.
This is what basically killed the prosecution’s case. The Bundy’s discovered that the BLM had every intention of, to be perfectly blunt, wiping out the family. This is what led to the Bundy’s call for help and the arrival of at least a thousand very heavily armed citizens. There were videos of the BLM agents willfully violating the constitutional rights of people and in one case, assaulting a pregnant woman. (I believe she is part of the Bundy family)
It soon became clear that this wasn’t going to be another repeat of the Branch Davidian massacre in Waco, Texas. The federal agents were outnumbered and outgunned for the first time in forever, and the citizens were perfectly willing to wipe them out if things went sideways. Someone finally figured this out after the BLM was caught illegally slaughtering some of the cattle. The news of these actiions started making the rounds of the militia encampment, and suddenly the federal agents picked up and pulled out of the area.
Now, what will happen to these corrupt prosecutors? Basically, if history is any judge, nothing at all. By rights, there should be a quick investigation followed by terminations from government employment, and possibly disbarment’s and possibly criminal charges.
Ian C. Bartrum, professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas law school, said he was struck by the judge’s reproof, noting that “she didn’t mince words in her criticism of the government,” and characterized the dismissal as a clear victory for the Bundys and their fight against federal lands policy.
“The judge’s decision plays like a vindication for at least part of the Bundy’s claims — that the government has been overzealous from the beginning on this case,” said Mr. Bartrum in an email. “The roundup was overkill, the charges were overkill, and the prosecution’s behavior was, in the judge’s words, ‘outrageous.’ That’s a pretty big win for the Bundys politically, which is where all the land stuff will eventually play out.”
As for the Bundy’s, I understand that they’re going back to court again over what started this whole mess, the federal government’s land grab and abuse of the Nevada ranchers. As to how that will turn out, I have no idea.
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Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
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Until a few examples are made (with great fanfare) of such government lawyers getting disbarred, AND MORE, then this abuse will continue. We as citizens cannot bring suit against government EMPLOYEES at any level (you CAN’T sue city hall, or any other branch of gov’t, as the saying goes). But having people in charge that do hold them responsible, as in supervisors firing for incompetence or over-zealousness, and overseers (state bar assns) that will pull their license, are steps in the right direction, Too many do whatever because they are never held to account for their indiscretions.