That didn't make them true.
FWIW, when I lived in the West 20 years ago the greenies hated the BLM. Called it the Bureau of Livestock and Mining.
Was an article of faith among the greenies that BLM's primary goal was to despoil the environment as much as they possibly could.
I spent a lot of time hiking and camping on BLM land. Always seemed to me that they did a pretty good job given their challenges.
That may have changed since. Don't know.
One time, hiking on public BLM land, I encountered a Bundy type rancher. Insisted it was his land and I had no right to walk across it. Got kind of threatening.
Of course, he did NOT own the land, he merely leased the right to graze cattle on it, and I had every right to be there as long as I didn't molest his cattle.
But in his mind, it was HIS land, just as apparently Bundy thinks hundreds of thousands of acres of public domain adjoining his 160 acre base ranch are HIS land.
Doesn't mean they are legally, morally or constitutionally right in that belief.
Doesnt mean they weren’t true.
The Feds have a long history of confiscating private property. It goes back a LONG LONG way. Heck you can go into the Smoky Mountains and see cabins that were forcibly taken from the private owners for no other reason then the Federal Govt wanted it.
The Feds have more lawyers than the average individual. We don’t stand a chance of winning against their onslaught of legal mumbo jumbo.