That same argument has been used, and sometimes it wins. But case law is pretty settled that if you don't pay the grazing fees, you lose the right to graze.
However, he did say that sending in a massive show of force is very troubling. Most cases are handled by mail, and more than a few are settled very quickly. Grazing for twenty years without paying a fee is very odd. Sending in mercs and BLM rangers is almost unprecedented (they don't do that on the Rez even when there are massive drug operations going on).
IF they killed the cattle, then not only does Bundy have excellent standing to sue and win a lot of money, he wins the sympathy of many in the West. Law out there is very different, and that may go farther than anything.
I do wonder about the wranglers they brought in. Not many would do so. I wonder if after the boys got down there and saw what was going on, they stopped working. Then the mercs started shooting (I say mercs because of the pictures of non uniformed armed men in tactical gear inside the Fedgov compound).
I agree with most of what you say. However, Nevada has some very unique grazing laws - that actually create an easement or right-of-way for grazing. To charge for an easement, any easement, the charge must be part of the original granting of that easement. This is not the case for Bundy - his easement was well established long before the feds moved in - therefor, they have no right to charge a grazing fee for a grazing easement the Bundys already owned. This is why, in these cases, the BLM refers to grazing management fees. They ostensibly charge for managing the grazing land. However, it is a difficult stretch to charge a man for managing his grazing easement while you are continually trying to remove his cattle and illegally obstruct his easement - which is why Bundy quit paying the management fee...they weren’t managing the grazing. By law, the BLM is supposed to manage the land to improve/increase the grazing and the carrying capacity. They weren’t doing the job for which they were charging - so Bundy quit paying for the job they weren’t doing.
This should be his defense. “I owned the easement before the feds took possession, so I don’t owe grazing fees for forage I already owned. They were not managing the range to improve the grazing, which is what I was paying for, so I quit paying for a job they didn’t do.”
There is a lot going on that escapes the consumer. Ranch land in the West is not like anything the east has ever known.
Folks can speculate and pontificate but that doesn’t change the fact that there are laws that existed before the West was settled.
In analyzing the history of farmers/ranchers in the West, I can say, without a doubt, that Harry Reid and his equally evil son are trying to do a bait-and-switch with the Bundys. Reid wants the land for a solar array that the Chinese want to install, but Reid wants to rent it to them, so he can actually take advantage of the water in the aquifers underneath it all. Using the desert tortoise as an excuse...this is the same Harry Reid who has championed the Nevada Test Site... what about all the wildlife he killed there...?
Just as happened in the counties north of us, anyone who votes for that nasty, heartless POS should be pilloried.
In 1993 the feds ordered him to cut his herd by 50% in deference to the desert tortise which would have put him out of business. He was willing to pay grazing fees to the state and county just not to the feds that were trying to put him out of business. Also look up the related Hage case.