Ammon Bundy
Ammon Edward Bundy is an American anti-government militant and activist who led the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. He is the son of rancher Cliven Bundy, who was the central figure in the 2014 Bundy standoff in Nevada regarding unpaid grazing fees on federally-owned public land.
In March 2020, Bundy created the far-right People's Rights network. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bundy was arrested more than five times for protests and disruptions against COVID-19 mitigation efforts by the Idaho government.
Bundy ran for governor of Idaho in the 2022 election. After initially filing to run in the Republican primary, he decided instead to run as an independent in the general election. Bundy lost the election, but his share of the vote was the strongest performance by a non-major party candidate for Idaho governor since 1926.
Personal life
Ammon Bundy owns a truck repair company and was listed as a member of several Arizona companies. Prior to the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, he had lost a home in a short sale and was behind on his property taxes.Bundy and his wife, Lisa, have three daughters and three sons. They owned a home in Emmett until it was subsequently seized by the Idaho State Courts and transferred to the plaintiffs related to a litigation with St. Luke's Hospital in Idaho. His cousin is Representative Celeste Maloy from.
2014 Bundy standoff in Bunkerville
Standoff
On April 9, Bundy drove an all-terrain vehicle in front of a Bureau of Land Management truck to block it from leaving. Officers told him to move his ATV, and he refused, yelling and approaching them belligerently. When two officers pointed tasers at him and ordered him to back up, Bundy continued to advance. An officer with a police dog approached to compel him to back away from the officers. He repeatedly kicked the police dog and was tasered moments later. After Bundy ripped off the taser wires and advanced toward the officers again, he was tasered a second time. He acknowledged in an interview that he had also climbed on a dump truck that he believed contained his father's cattle.On or before April 10, Bundy asked the Oath Keepers to request that their volunteers who came to the protest follow certain rules. He asked that they not wear military camouflage and to leave their rifles in their vehicles rather than open carry them. He also asked that they check in with him when they arrived at the protest rally point. In addition, Bundy asked that they not drive past the rally point to the Bundy ranch. He also asked that no protester give a media interview, instead referring the media to Bundy family members, in particular him, his father, or one of his brothers.
On April 10, Cliven and Ammon were interviewed on-air by Fox News' Greta Van Susteren. Cliven said he would only accept a court order from a Nevada state court since he believed that a federal court does not have competent jurisdiction. To that, Ammon added, "If someone came in, busted into my house and abused my children, and so I call the cops, they don't respond, and then I take them to court. I show up at the courtroom, look on the stand, and it's the very person that abused my children looking down at me in a black robe. How in the world are we going to get justice in that court?"
On the morning of April 12, BLM had corralled about 400 of Cliven's cattle. Ammon and a group of protesters went to the makeshift impoundment site and formed a line across it. Bureau of Land Management agents called for backup but were outnumbered, with about 400 protesters to the 50 officers present at the scene. The officers ordered the crowd to disperse over a loudspeaker, but they would not. Instead, gunmen started to gather, causing the officers to retreat.
On April 14, Ammon, along with Cliven and his brother Ryan, were interviewed on-air by Fox News' Sean Hannity. Ammon said, "I'd again, and after it was all over, I couldn't have felt better." Asked about remarks from Senator Harry Reid that the situation was not over, despite BLM's withdrawal from the standoff, Ammon responded, "Well, if he doesn't have enough moral fiber in his bones at all to see what happened, that 'We the People' got together and made something right, then I don't think there's any hope for him, and he needs to be kicked out of office, even if he is the Senate majority leader, it doesn't matter."
Prosecution
On February 7, 2016, Ammon Bundy—along with his father Cliven, brother Ryan, and others—were indicted in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada for their roles in the 2014 Bundy standoff. The men were charged with 16 felony counts: one count of "conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States"; one count of "conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer"; four counts of "using and carrying a firearm in relation to a crime of violence"; two counts of "assault on a federal officer"; two counts of "threatening a federal law enforcement officer"; three counts of "obstruction of the due administration of justice"; two counts of "interference with interstate commerce by extortion"; and one count of "interstate travel in aid of extortion."This prosecution is separate from the Malheur Refuge occupation prosecution in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. In early April 2016, Judge Brown of the Oregonian prosecution approved an order to send the four defendants charged in both cases, including Ammon and Ryan Bundy, to Nevada to make an appearance in court there. The men were transported to Las Vegas by U.S. Marshals, and on April 16, 2016, Ammon Bundy and the four other militants refused to enter pleas in regards to their roles in the standoff, prompting U.S. Magistrate Judge George Foley Jr. to enter not-guilty pleas on their behalf. In the unusually long arraignment, Bundy asked for the 64-page indictment to be read aloud in court.
The trial for the Bundy standoff case was set for February 2017 in Nevada.
Mistrial and acquittal
On January 8, 2018, U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro declared the mistrial to be with prejudice, effectively dismissing the charges, on the grounds that the defendants could not receive a fair trial. "The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated," the federal judge was quoted to have written in an order, as reported in the Los Angeles Times.Appeal
In August 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco denied an appeal by federal prosecutors to reinstate the criminal prosecution of the Bundys related to the 2014 armed standoff in Nevada and the 2016 armed protest and occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The appeals court upheld the dismissal of the case agreeing with the trial court's finding that the prosecution improperly withheld documents requested by the defense. The court stopped short of affirming that prosecutorial misconduct had occurred and stated that "misjudgments" by prosecutors did not rise to professional misconduct in the case.2016 militant occupation
Prelude to the occupation
In 2015, ranchers Dwight and Steve Hammond were resentenced to five years for two counts of arson on federal land, after their original sentence was vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. By late 2015, the Hammond case had attracted the attention of Ammon and his brother, Ryan Bundy. Although the ranchers rejected Bundy's assistance, Bundy decided to lead an armed occupation of the headquarters area of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on January 2, 2016. He referred to his group as the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom and remarked that it could be a lengthy stay.Occupation
Bundy's father Cliven said that he was not involved in the occupation, and that it was "not exactly what I thought should happen".Early in the standoff, a Twitter user claiming to be Ammon Bundy tweeted a statement comparing the group to civil rights activist Rosa Parks. The account was later found to be a hoax. Despite this, other involved militants have made comparisons with Parks.
Speaking through his lawyer Mike Arnold the day after his arrest, Bundy urged those remaining at the refuge to "please stand down" and go home.
Apprehension
Bundy was peacefully arrested on January 26, 2016, when the vehicle he was traveling in was pulled over by a joint force of FBI agents and troopers from Oregon State Patrol. He was with other militants from the occupation attempting to drive to John Day, Oregon for a public meeting where he was scheduled to speak. Another vehicle in the convoy fled the traffic stop until it encountered a roadblock, where Oregon State Patrol officers shot and killed LaVoy Finicum.Pretrial proceedings and indictment
In January 2016, Bundy appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman alongside several other jailed militants. He explained the motives of the occupation to the court, saying that his "only goal from the beginning was to protect freedom for the people." Judge Beckerman denied him and the other militants pretrial release, explaining that she would not release them as long as the occupation continued. That same day, Bundy offered to plead guilty to the federal conspiracy charge alone, in exchange for the dismissal of the other charges against him, the dismissal of all of the charges filed against the other militants in custody at the time, and letting militants still at the refuge to leave peacefully without arrest. However, federal prosecutors rejected the offer. Bundy later repeatedly urged the militants remaining at the refuge to stand down and go home.In interviews, Bundy said jail was the "most difficult thing I've ever done".
On March 8, 2016, the federal grand jury in Oregon returned a new superseding indictment that unsealed the following day, charging Bundy and 25 co-defendants with a variety of crimes in relation to the occupation. Bundy was charged with three offenses: conspiracy to impede officers of the United States by force, intimidation, or threats; possession of firearms and dangerous weapons in federal facilities; and using and carrying firearms in relation to a crime of violence.
Bundy's attorney, Mike Arnold of Eugene, Oregon, was accused of organizing a social media harassment campaign against the public agencies involved in evidence gathering and prosecution of the case, and in particular the Oregon State Police. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that sovereign citizen movement members also attempted to insert themselves into the case, filing a flurry of paperwork in a tactic common to the movement known as paper terrorism. Arnold also faced ethics complaints regarding attempts to unduly influence the potential jury pool and for possible ethical violations involving visits by Arnold's law firm to Bundy and other militants prior to their arrests, offering legal services. The complaint was later dropped by the Oregon State Bar on the basis of insufficient evidence.
In May 2016, Bundy's legal team filed court papers seeking dismissal of the indictments on the ground that Bundy believed the occupation would result in a civil court taking up the constitutionality of the U.S. government's federal land management policy, and that Bundy did not expect the militants to be criminally charged. His lawyers wrote that Bundy believed that two U.S. Supreme Court cases, upholding the federal government's broad power over federal lands, were wrongfully decided. These motions were rejected by U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown, citing longstanding Supreme Court precedent establishing the federal government's power to own and manage public land under the Property Clause as being "without limitations," and ruled that Bundy was "mistaken" in his belief that the existence of the wildlife refuge is unconstitutional.
On May 26, 2016, Bundy replaced his legal counsel, removing the Arnold Law Firm from the case and hiring J. Morgan Philpot as his lawyer. He also retained Utah attorney Marcus Mumford to assist Bundy.
On June 10, 2016, Judge Brown dismissed one of two firearms charges against Bundy and seven other militants, finding that the underlying conspiracy charge does not meet the legal definition of a "crime of violence" as defined by Ninth Circuit case law. In July 2016, the court denied the Bundy lawyers' request for a delay in his trial.
In September 2016, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, filed a motion seeking to permit his client to wear "cowboy" attire in court. The U.S. Marshals Service's policy barred the defendants from wearing ties, boots, and belts, for safety reasons. Denying the motion on grounds that this policy is rational and that the Bundys did not show their attire would prejudice their case, Judge Brown said Ammon was "dressed better than most people in the building, period." On October 27, 2016, a jury acquitted seven of the defendants. Five of them were released but Ammon Bundy and his brother Ryan remained in federal custody pending trial on charges related to the 2014 Bundy standoff.