PORTLAND, Ore. – The armed occupation of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge spanned 41 freezing cold January days. The trial for the standoff’s leader, Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan, and five others took six weeks. And the verdict came in just five days: all defendants were found not guilty of federal conspiracy charges.
It was the grand finale of a federal trial that played out like a three-ring circus. The trial often saw the ninth-floor courtroom packed with more than 100 people – jurors, attorneys, supporters, journalists – and another room four floors up packed with even more.
Just after 4 p.m. Thursday, Judge Anna Brown read all charges: all defendants were found not guilty of charges of conspiracy to impede federal officers and not guilty of possession of firearms in a federal facility. One of the occupiers, Kenneth Medenbach, was found not guilty of theft of a government-owned truck. The jury was hung on the charge of theft of government cameras against Ryan Bundy.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, D, said she is disappointed but respects the jury’s decision. “The occupation of the Malheur Refuge by outsiders did not reflect the Oregon way of respectfully working together to resolve differences,” Brown said in a statement Thursday.
Like the occupation itself – a coup over federal land ownership that wore on for over a month before FBI agents closed in on the last occupiers – the trial, too, stretched over a month. When Ammon Bundy took the witness stand, he seized it like a pulpit, delivering 10 hours of testimony about his family, his Mormon views and his interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
After four days of deliberation, the circus appeared to infiltrate the jury room. A juror sent a note to the judge, suspicious of another juror’s bias due to prior employment with the Bureau of Land Management – a point that came up in jury selection. After a day of argument, the judge dismissed the juror, called in an alternate, and deliberations started anew.
But outside the courtroom, past Homeland Security agents, flak-jacketed cops, a police dog, U.S. Marshals and metal detectors, the circus sideshow unfolded on the green park across the street. There in the middle of downtown Portland, “Patriot” supporters threw a full-blown tailgate party. They set up a charcoal grill and handed out hot dogs and burgers in the rain. A woman handed out miniature flags and pocket-sized copies of the Constitution. From the back of a pickup truck, one woman shouted into megaphones that Judge Anna Brown “should be jailed. You’ve committed religious bigotry!” They trotted a black horse with a red, white and blue saddle across 5 o’clock traffic, up and down the sidewalks. They wore T-shirts that read “Unindicted Co-Conspirator” and “Free the Bundys.”
Early in the trial and often throughout, people stopped to shout back at the protesters. Only here in Portland – the city affectionately dubbed “Little Beirut” – could there be a protest of a protest over political protest.
The narrative that the defense pushed throughout the trial, that the Malheur occupation was simply a protest, convinced the jury. On Thursday just after 4 p.m., Ammon Bundy sat before the court in a suit as the charges were read. Throughout the course of the trial, Bundy wore powder-blue jail pajamas. His attorney announced that Bundy wanted to appear in jail clothes fit for the “political prisoner.” Supporters followed suit: donning scrub-style shirts as they watched from the gallery. Defense attorneys argued often: this armed occupation was a “Martin Luther King style sit-in.”
On Jan. 2, Bundy and a group of gun-toting, camouflage-clad men executed a military-style takeover of a Southeastern Oregon bird refuge – and then occupied its buildings for several days. At once, the world’s eye turned toward the remote, snowy expanse of the west to a place named Malheur: a French word meaning “misfortune” or “tragedy” that was given to a nearby river by French trappers whose ranks were decimated there by Indians.
It seemed, all at once, the French word had modern relevance. Bundy – the son of scofflaw Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who led his own standoff with federal agents in 2014 on his Bunkerville, Nevada, ranch – served as a cowboy-hatted spokesman and leader to a group of “Patriots” who saw their takeover as an act of peaceful, political protest. They were advocating for the rights of rural ranchers. They were taking a “hard stand” after years of “oppression” by government agencies. But locals were spooked: schools in Burns, Oregon – 30 miles away – stayed closed for a week. Federal offices kept their doors shuttered. The county sheriff prepared for his office to be invaded. Signs popped up around town: “Bundys Go Home!”
At daily press conferences from the refuge, Bundy would tell a crowd of shivering reporters that the promise of the rural West was fading because of federal land ownership. Patting the pocket-sized Constitution peeking out of his breast pocket, he’d say the government needed to be stopped – and the Constitution would be their guide.
Though Bundy and his men presented themselves as simple, golly-gee good ol’ boys, the operation would play out in the most un-golly-gee of ways: it was tech-savvy, live on the Internet. When the mostly-male group prayed together, videos appeared on YouTube. Calls for support rang across Facebook. Twitter detractors branded the group #yallqaeda and led efforts to mail package of sex toys to the refuge, LOL’ing as videos emerged of the red-faced men drawing plastic phalluses out of the boxes. When one member of the group was shot and killed by state police, a cellphone video emerged online from a passenger in the car.
In the final hours of the standoff, when just four people remained and armored FBI vehicles inched toward them, their screams and tears transmitted to the ears of some 60,000 live listeners on YouTube. To Patriots, this felt like a modern Waco or Ruby Ridge. To critics, this was show-stopping final act inspired by the ringmaster Bundy.
In the courtroom, a new event began. While many of Bundy’s 26 co-defendants pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to impede federal officers from performing their duties – a charge that has been used to prosecute extremist left-wingers and Earth First protesters – six others remained steadfast over their innocence. (In February, a second trial for seven more defendants will begin; that same month, Cliven, Ammon, Ryan and two other Bundy sons will face trial in Nevada for the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff.)
In closing arguments, defense attorneys argued that the government was simply doing exactly what the defendants were protesting: overreaching. Defense attorney Matthew Schindler asked the jury to take in the non-Bundy defendants: Shawna Cox, the 68-year-old “old hippie” Neil Wampler, 28-year-old “computer nerd” David Fry, the graying 62-year-old Kenneth Medenbach. “Look at these people,” Schindler said. “Is that an army?”
Featured Image: AFP
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Leah Sottile
