Free Republic

Ranchers and their elected representatives have won a major battle. The federal government dropped criminal charges against Charles and Heather Maude of Caputa, SD. Ben Patterson, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Federal District Court in the Western Division of South Dakota signed a motion to dismiss the indictment against Charles Maude and Heather Maude, dated April 28. South Dakota ranchers Charles and Heather Maude were indicted separately nearly a year ago on charges of theft of federal property stemming from a fenceline dispute about a fence built before either were born. Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman is pleased with the news...

An FBI agent applied for a federal warrant in 2018 to seize a fabled cache of U.S. government gold he said was “stolen during the Civil War” and hidden in a Pennsylvania cave, saying the state might take the gold for itself if the feds asked for permission, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.

A Harrisburg attorney said Thursday that a state appeals court has just given him the next clue toward hopefully solving the mystery of whether the FBI dug up a cache of lost Civil War gold worth about $400 million from a remote Pennsylvania forest nearly three years ago. That clue, William J. Cluck said, is the name of the federal magistrate judge who ordered all records of the March 2018 excavation in the Dent’s Run area of Elk County to be sealed from public view. Cluck said he can use that information, secured through his latest Right-to-Know Law appeal to...

This is a rather odd story that I’ve been following for a while now, so bear with me. It’s been featured on a couple of the Travel Channel’s conspiracy theory shows and you’ll see why in a moment if you’re not familiar with it. But a recent development may bring it out of the tinfoil hat column and at least into the realm of possibility. The tale starts in the 1860s when legend has it that a large wagon full of gold bullion was either stolen or “went missing” in a remote area of western Pennsylvania. The shipment had supposedly...

Go for the gold? The U.S. government went for it. FBI agents were looking for an extremely valuable cache of fabled Civil War-era gold — possibly tons of it — when they excavated a remote woodland site in Pennsylvania three years ago this month, according to government emails and other recently released documents in the case. On March 13, 2018, treasure hunters led the FBI to Dent’s Run, about 135 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh, where legend has it an 1863 shipment of Union gold was either lost or stolen on its way to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia....

President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday morning that he has “authorized” law enforcement officials to arrest anyone attempting to destroy historic statues on federal property. The President’s declaration comes hours after radical leftists attempted to tear down a statue of Andrew Jackson which stands in full view of the White House. Trump cited the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act, which addresses the destruction of statues commemorating those who have served in America’s armed forces.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said on Saturday at the American Conservative Union’s 2020 CPAC in Oxon Hill, Maryland, that President Donald Trump has made it a priority to give Americans access to federal lands for both pleasure and business. In keeping with that goal, Bernhardt said that his agency is committed to making sure that 245 million acres in the western United States be “specifically designated to be managed for multiple use.” “We’ve expanded by 1.4 million acres this last year as opportunities for hunting and fishing on public lands and in forests, but more importantly we have ensured the...

We have finally learned what, in this day and age, can get students thrown off of federal property—singing the National Anthem. “A group of high school students attending a conservative leadership conference in Washington, D.C. said they were ordered by a security guard to stop singing the national anthem during a June 25 visit to the Lincoln Memorial,” Todd Starnes reported on Fox News yesterday. “They told them to stop singing,” said Evan Gassman, a spokesman for the Young America’s Foundation, which sponsored the conference. “I was taken aback.” “You wouldn’t expect a display of national patriotism to be censored.”...