Cliven Bundy

Bundy was born on April 29, 1946, in Las Vegas, to David Ammon Bundy and Bodel Jensen Bundy. His father started grazing cattle on an allotment near the farm in Bunkerville, Nevada that he purchased in 1949 while his mother had settled on land near Mesquite, Nevada.[7]

Bundy advocated for limited federal government involvement in local affairs, particularly in ranching.

Bundy supported the ideas of the sovereign citizen movement. Many of the adherents of the movement argue that the federal government is illegitimate and does not have jurisdiction over individuals, meaning that laws do not apply to them.[8] Bundy had asked for the support of members of the Oath Keepers, the White Mountain Militia, and the Praetorian Guard.[8]

Cliven Bundy has said he does not recognize federal police power over land that he believes belongs to the "sovereign state of Nevada."[9][10]

Bundy has denied the jurisdiction of the federal court system over Nevada land and filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the Bureau of Land Management case against him by claiming the federal courts have no jurisdiction because he is a "citizen of Nevada, not the territory of Nevada".[10] Bundy also believes that federally owned land in Nevada actually belongs to the state.[11][12]

According to The Guardian, Bundy told his supporters that "We definitely don't recognize [the BLM director's] jurisdiction or authority, his arresting power or policing power in any way," and in interviews he used the language of the sovereign citizen movement, thereby gaining the support of members of the Oath Keepers, the White Mountain Militia and the Praetorian Guard militias.[13] The movement is considered by the FBI as a major domestic terrorism threat.[14][15]

J. J. MacNab, who writes for Forbes about anti-government extremism, described Bundy's views as having been inspired by the sovereign citizen movement, whose adherents claim that the county sheriff is the most powerful law-enforcement officer in the country, with authority superior to that of any federal agent, local law-enforcement agency or any other elected official.[16]

On April 12, 2014, Bundy demanded Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie to confront the federal agents, disarm them and deliver their arms to Bundy within an hour of his demand, and later expressed disappointment that Gillespie did not comply.[16][17][18]

The Southern Poverty Law Center has described Bundy's views as closely aligned with those of the Posse Comitatus organization, and it has also asserted that such self-described "patriot" groups were focused on secession, nullification, and the principles of the Tenther movement.[19][20]

In May 2014, Bundy changed his party affiliation from the Republican Party to the Independent American Party.[21]

BLM Trespass Cattle Closure Map, April 11, 2014.

The Bundy standoff was an armed confrontation between protesters and law enforcement that developed from a 20-year legal dispute between the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Cliven Bundy over unpaid grazing fees on federally owned land in southeastern Nevada.

The dispute started in 1993, when, in protest against changes to grazing rules, Bundy declined to renew his permit for cattle grazing on BLM-administered lands near Bunkerville, Nevada. According to the Bureau of Land Management, Bundy continued to graze his cattle on public lands without a permit. In 1998, Bundy was prohibited by the United States District Court for the District of Nevada from grazing his cattle on an area of land later called the Bunkerville Allotment. In July 2013, U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George ordered that Bundy refrain from trespassing on federally administered land in the Gold Butte area of Clark County.

On March 27, 2014, 145,604 acres (58,924 ha) acres of federal land in Clark County were temporarily closed for the "capture, impound, and removal of trespass cattle". BLM officials and law enforcement rangers began a roundup of such livestock on April 5, and an arrest was made the next day. On April 12, a group of protesters, some of them armed, advanced on what the BLM described as a "cattle gather". Sheriff Doug Gillespie negotiated with Bundy and newly confirmed BLM director Neil Kornze, who elected to release the cattle and de-escalate the situation. As of the end of 2015, Bundy continued to graze his cattle on Federal land and had not paid the fees.

During an interview with a journalist following the standoff, Bundy cited Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution to assert the federal government is limited to owning ten square miles of land, though the clause actually limits the District of Columbia to "ten Miles square."[23][24]

About a week after the climax of the standoff, on April 19, 2014, Bundy spoke about witnessing a civil disturbance, the 1965 Watts riots.[25] Bundy described his views about unhappiness at that time and criticized what he saw as government interference and its influence on African Americans. He recalled later seeing a public housing project in North Las Vegas where some of the older residents and the children sat on the porch. He said:

I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro. When I go to Las Vegas, north Las Vegas, and I would see these little Government houses, and in front of that Government house the door was usually open, and the older people and the kids and there was always at least half a dozen people on the porch. They didn't have nothing to do, they didn't have nothing for the kids to do, they didn't have nothing for the young girls to do. They were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn't get no more freedom. They got less freedom.[5][6]

In reference to Mexican people, he said:

They come over here against our Constitution and cross our borders, but they're here, and they're people ... Don't tell me they don't work, and don't tell me they don't pay taxes. And don't tell me they don't have better family structures than most of us white people.[25]

A year later Bundy called the reaction to his statements a "misunderstanding," saying he was not racist and that he should not have used the term "Negro." He added: "I've never had a black person or a brown person ever say anything bad about me." He then proceeded to make further statements about race, comparing "welfare and housing" to slavery. He expressed support for Blacks who have "raised themselves up to a point where they are equal with the rest of us." As an alternative to government jobs and programs, he touted private-sector work. "We don't need leeches feeding off us and eating off of us," he said. "We need producers."[22]

Bundy was arrested at Portland International Airport in Oregon on February 10, 2016, while attempting to travel to Burns, Oregon to support militants at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Bundy was booked into the downtown Multnomah County jail.[40]

In a 32-page criminal complaint, federal prosecutors charged Bundy with one count of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, one count of assault on a federal officer by use of a deadly weapon and aiding and abetting, two counts of use and carrying of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and aiding and abetting, one count of interfering with commerce by extortion and aiding and abetting, and one count of obstruction of the administration of justice and aiding and abetting.[41][42][43][44]

Bundy made his first appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in Portland on February 11. He sought court-appointed counsel.[45] At a detention hearing on February 16, Stewart ordered Bundy to be held without bail, citing the serious nature of the charges and the risk of flight.[46][47] A preliminary hearing was held on March 4, 2016, at the Las Vegas federal courthouse.[48]

On March 10, Bundy refused to enter a plea to the charges against him, as well as recognize federal authority in the courtroom. U.S. Magistrate Judge Carl Hoffman subsequently entered a plea of not guilty for Bundy and scheduled his detention hearing on March 17.[49] His trial was initially scheduled for May 2, but it was postponed to February 6, 2017.[50] Two more of his sons, Melvin and David, were arrested on charges related to the Bundy standoff, along with 12 other men who were likewise involved.[51]

On March 10, 2016, Bundy also filed a lawsuit against Judge Gloria Navarro, Senator Harry Reid, Reid's son Rory, and President Barack Obama, alleging a number of conspiracy theories and describing the judge as a "Latino activist."[52][53] A day later, Bundy's lawyer attempted to serve the judge with the lawsuit during a detention hearing, demanding that the judge recuse herself from the proceedings because she was now involved in a legal conflict with Bundy. The motion was quickly denied, but the judge gave Bundy's lawyer until May 25 to make a case as to whether her previous work as a prosecutor in Clark County, Nevada merited any recusal.[54] On May 25, Judge Navarro denied Bundy's motion for her recusal from the case, and ruled that he would not be granted bail due to factors including:[55]

• His history of ignoring federal laws and court orders.
• The number of supporters willing to act as armed bodyguards.
• The chance that he would flee from arrest or fail to report for court appearances as ordered.
• The potential for violence by his supporters, constituting a danger to the community.

Charlie Pierce, writing for Esquire, described Bundy's legal maneuvers as "a bubbling stew of pure crazy" sounding "like it was dialed in from someone's car to the worst talk-radio show on Planet Stupid"; while Amanda Marcotte of Salon described it as a nuisance lawsuit and an "incoherent scattershot of a lawsuit."[56][57] On October 17, 2016, Bundy dismissed his lawsuit against Navarro, President Obama, and the Reids.[58]

In a memo dated November 27, 2017,[59] BLM lead investigator Larry Wooten alleged that he was removed from his role in the Bundy case for objecting to a "widespread pattern of bad judgment, lack of discipline, incredible bias, unprofessionalism and misconduct, as well as likely policy, ethical and legal violations among senior and supervisory [BLM] staff."[60][61] However, a prior internal investigation by BLM special agent Kent Kleman contradicted Wooten's particular allegations that staff assigned to the case withheld evidence that would assist the Bundy defense.[62]

On December 21, 2017, a mistrial was declared by Judge Navarro, citing a "willful" failure by federal prosecutors to turn over FBI and BLM documents that would potentially aid the defense.[63] Soon thereafter on January 8, 2018, Navarro dismissed with prejudice all charges against Cliven Bundy and his sons, thus forbidding any retrial of the defendants. In her decision, Navarro further criticized prosecutors for willful violations of defendants' due process rights, as well as the aforementioned failure to properly turn over evidence to their lawyers.[4] The government appealed the dismissal.

Cliven Bundy with his son Ammon in 2014

Bundy has claimed he was a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims.[22] Prior to his incarceration, Bundy lived in his family home which he built with his father.[22] Bundy has 14 adult children[2] and 60 grandchildren.[22] His children include Ammon Bundy and Ryan Bundy, two of the leaders of the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.[67]

In a 2015 biography, The Guardian reported that Cliven Bundy did not carry a weapon out of concern it would make him an assassination target. The Guardian also reported that prior to his 2016 arrest, Bundy was protected by an armed body guard which he then claimed had 100 "heavy operators" in the Nevada area, ready to protect him if called upon.[22]