Pardoned ranchers who inspired Oregon occupation win back grazing permits

washington times ^ | 1/29/2019 | staff

[bkopto]

Dwight and Steven Hammond’s journey from ranchers to convicted domestic terrorists back to ranchers concluded this week when the federal government reissued permits allowing the father and son to graze cattle again on public land.

A Bureau of Land Management spokesman confirmed Tuesday that the agency had reinstated grazing permits for Hammond Ranches in Harney County, Oregon, who received full pardons from President Trump in July.

The Hammonds were sentenced to five-year mandatory minimum sentences in 2015 under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act for two prescribed burns that spread to public land, a sentence that stoked outrage in the rural West.

Public Lands Council president Bob Skinner and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association president Kevin Kester called the reinstated permits “the final step in righting the egregious injustices the Hammonds faced.”

“This is the culmination of years of effort on behalf of this industry to restore a family’s livelihood,” said their statement. “We speak on behalf of the livestock producers nationwide in saying thank you to Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and his team who worked to correct the hardships this family faced.”

[bkopto]

This is what the environmentalists had to say:

"After the pardon, Defenders of Wildlife president Jamie Rappaport Clark said: “we hope that it is not seen as an encouragement to those who might use violence to seize federal property and threaten federal employees in the West.”"

Unbelievable.

[Darksheare]

“Defenders of wildelife”, A.K.A. envirofascists who would gleefully see all ranching ended, and ranchers murdered via government force just to save prairie dogs.

[M Kehoe]

Good news.

5.56mm

[LeoWindhorse]

Remember LaVoy Finicum

[roadcat]

Thank God President Trump was elected president. He’s corrected another injustice created by the Obama administration.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Don’t worry BLM tyrants, it will be seen for what it is/was- a fight for truth, justice, and freedom.

[Moonman62]

From Wiki:

On January 2, 2016, an armed group affiliated with the private U.S. militia movement held a peaceful march in protest of the Hammonds’ prison sentences. Afterwards, several members of the group, consisting of Bundy, Payne, Jon Ritzheimer, and armed associates separated from the protest crowd at some point during the day and proceeded to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, 30 miles (48 km) away. The militants settled into the refuge and set up defensive positions. The Hammonds were convicted of arson on federal land, sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, and sought clemency from the U.S. president.

Bundy said he began leading the occupation after receiving a divine message ordering him to do so. The militant group demanded that the federal government of the United States cede ownership of the refuge, and expressed willingness to engage in armed conflict. For a time, the government and police did not engage directly with the militia.

Dwight and Steven Hammond disavowed the occupation of the refuge. They voluntarily reported to begin serving the remainder of their respective prison sentences.

[LeoWindhorse]

Obama , Holder , Lynch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw9sfuFGghY

[Pollster1]

It’s a good thing they survived Obama’s land grab and attempted cattle rustling.

[cowpoke]

Trump granted both Hammonds a FULL pardon on July 10, 2018. Why did it take 7 months for the BLM to reissue their grazing permits?

[cowpoke]

Here is an excerpt from a May, 2018 column by William Perry Pendley that lays out the facts of this case.

...The Hammonds’ crime? They set a legally permissible fire on their own property, which accidentally burned out of control onto neighboring federal land. Normally, that is an infraction covered by laws governing trespassing, and the guilty party is subject to paying for damages caused by the fire – if the neighboring land belongs to an ordinary citizen. But not when a vindictive federal government is involved. In the “high desert” environment of Harney County – and throughout the West – federal, state and private landowners use controlled or prescribed burns for prairie restoration, forest management and to reduce the buildup of underbrush that could fuel much bigger fires. But sometimes the controlled fires get out of control and sweep onto neighbors’ land. That is legally deemed a trespass, and the landowner who set the fire is liable for any damages. Only the federal government has the power to cite the trespasser criminally for his or her actions. That is what happened to the Hammonds. It did not happen in a vacuum. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has long coveted the Hammond Ranch for inclusion in its surrounding Malheur Wildlife Refuge. The federal agency pressured members of the Hammond family for decades to follow all of their neighbors in selling their property to the federal government. ...In 2001, after alerting the Bureau of Land Management, the Hammonds set a legal fire to eradicate noxious weeds. It spread onto 139 acres of vacant federal land. According to a government witness, the fire actually improved the federal land, as natural fires often do. In 2006, Steven Hammond started another prescribed fire in response to several blazes ignited by a lightning storm near his family’s field of winter feed. The counter-blaze burned a single acre of federal land. According to Steven Hammond’s mother, “the backfire worked perfectly, it put out the fire, saved the range and possibly our home.” The Bureau of Land Management took a different view. It filed a report with Harney County officials alleging several violations of Oregon law. However, after a review of the evidence, the Harney County district attorney dropped all charges in 2006. The Bureau of Land Management did not give up. In 2011, federal prosecutors – referencing both the 2001 and 2006 fires – charged the Hammonds with violating the ‘‘Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,” which carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years...

[cowpoke]

And here is an excerpt from a January 2018 article by Carrie Stadheim that gives more of the background of what had been happening to the ranchers in this area:

Dwight Hammond and Steve Hammond are in the midst of their five year prison sentences under the "Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996," for burning – and subsequently putting out – about 140 acres of Bureau of Land Management-administered land in their area. But there is so much more to the story. The family has been denied the ability to use their grazing allotment for nearly four years. Many in the community including Erin Maupin and Travis Williams wonder "why?" No fences or other property were damaged in the fires and a range conservationist testified under oath that the larger fire improved the condition of the rangeland... Hammond Ranch, Incorporated (HRI)- incidentally the only ranching family that continues to maintain a large tract of private land and graze BLM-administered land on the top of the Steens Mountain – was denied a renewal of their grazing permit in 2014, prior to a judge imposing the full five year prison sentence on Dwight and Steven. According to Erin Maupin, former BLM watershed specialist and neighboring rancher, the other ranchers who had previously grazed BLM land in that area, traded allotments and large private inholdings to the government through the creation of the Steens Mountain Act. Much of the grazing allotments that were handed over were then declared a Wilderness Area of around 180,000 acres. Almost 100,000 acres were named "cow-free" wilderness due to pressure from environmental groups and from the Clinton administration, she recalls...The BLM denied them the renewal of their grazing permit in 2014, before the second sentencing, saying they have an "unacceptable record of performance."

Stadheim goes on to write of the significance of this case:

Because the Hammonds can't use their grazing allotment, they are also unable to use their private land which is not fenced, and nearly impossible to fence due to the rough terrain. "They own a significant amount (around 10,000 acres) of private land intermingled with their BLM allotment (around 60,000 acres total) that they are unable to use because there are no fences to separate the two," said Maupin. "Another thing people maybe don't understand – they've paid for their BLM allotment with the purchase of the land and grazing rights. It has real value," said Maupin. "This is why this case is so important. The government is taking real property without due process. If this stands and they can do this to the Hammonds, they can take any of our property whether it is a BLM administered allotment or a house or anything. That's the problem – there was no due process. They just said 'you're done. We're not renewing your permit. We're taking what amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars without just compensation."

[deport]

Bet they’ll be more careful with their burns this time around.

[cowpoke]

And here is an excerpt from a column I wrote in November of 2015 that shows the BLM was so vindictive they went so far as to use false names to attack the Hammonds in social media:

Ranchers as Terrorists
After a two-week trial in July of 2012, Oregon rancher Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven Hammond, 46, were found guilty of setting fires that caused damage to federal property. One fire burned 139 acres of federal land, the other only 1 acre. The Hammonds claimed the fires were for range management purposes, the federal prosecutors said they were set for more nefarious reasons. Now-retired U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan sentenced Steven Hammond to one year and a day in prison for setting intentional fires in 2001 and 2006, and ordered Dwight Hammond to spend three months behind bars for his involvement in the 2001 blaze. That should have been the end of the story. But it wasn’t. The feds appealed claiming the ranchers should have received mandatory sentences of five years. They had charged the ranchers with violation of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. That’s right, the feds were using a law aimed at terrorists to prosecute the ranchers and that law required the mandatory sentences. Judge Hogan had ruled that 5-year sentences would “shock the conscience”, would be grossly disproportionate to the offenses committed and violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the feds, however, and returned the case for sentencing. On October 7 of this year, both Hammonds received the mandatory minimum sentence of five years for deliberately setting fires that spread from their property onto federal land. For comparison, other federal laws that carry five-year minimum sentences are for treason, child pornography, using a gun while committing a violent crime or importing drugs. That should have been the end of this sad story. But it wasn’t. Capital Press posted an online article about the five year sentences and a person who identified himself as Greg Allum posted three comments on the article, calling the ranchers “clowns” who endangered firefighters and other people in the area while burning valuable rangeland. The real Greg Allum, a retired BLM heavy equipment operator, called Capital Press and complained he hadn’t posted those comments. “They’re not terrorists. There’s this hatred in the BLM for them, and I don’t get it,” Allum said. The publication undertook a search of the Internet Protocol address associated with the comments and discovered the computer was owned by one of BLM’s offices in Denver, Colo. Treat ranchers as terrorists and then use a government computer to publicly disparage them. One is an injustice and the other is an abuse of federal equipment to ridicule private citizens.

[bkopto]

Yep. Real careful. Maybe no burns at all. Add video cameras around to document lightning strikes.

The .fedgov is a real bad neighbor.

[mabarker1]

So it’s the old:

Do as I/We say, not as I/We do. Bull$&!t

PISS OFF fedz!!!

And it NOT your land feds ! IT’S THE PEOPLE’S LAND !!!