Cooper's testimony also provides evidence for the government's allegations against the four defendants in the second trial.
It would have helped them had it been used in the first trial last fall.
In a video activist Kelli Stewart, who witnessed the testimony, said she believed Cooper was telling a story that was in large part not true and or irrelevant bringing up matters not related to Oregon.
Stewart said he did it to get himself out of jail where he is suffering great hardship and deprivation.
Cooper's poor appearance reminds me of prisoners hauled before Nazi Germany's "People's Court" or of a prisoner brought from some Soviet prison to a show trial.
I surmise that some meeting did take place on Dec. 29 and information was leaked by an informant from that meeting to the FBI.
The employees of the wildlife refuge were told the next day December 30th not to return to work after the break they were beginning for the New Year's holiday.
When the protest began January 2nd, Sheriff Dave Ward of Harney County suggested that another location in addition to the refuge was being occupied.
Ammon Bundy said in his trial last fall on the witness stand that he did not decide on the wildlife refuge protest specifically until January 2nd.
So perhaps the earlier meeting Cooper testified about discussed the notion of a protest but with more than one possible location listed.
I haven’t been following this, but I thought the people involved in the “standoff” were found not guilty a few months ago? So what is this trial about?
The prosecution “played inflammatory videos Cooper made, including one in which he tore out pages of the Koran, wrapped them in bacon and threw them into an outdoor fire pit, and shot arrows at the Koran. They pointed out that Cooper, despite being a convicted felon, was seen with an AR-15 rifle at the Bundy Ranch in 2014. And they elicited testimony that Cooper had spent time in institutions because of behavioral and mental health problems earlier in his life.”
....but will use his testimony to prosecute and imprison someone they have a bigger grudge against.