Ryan Bundy seemed uneasy as he settled into a white leather chair in a private suite at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. As the eldest son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who had become a national figure for his armed standoff with U.S. government agents in April 2014, Ryan had quite a story to tell.
Eight months had passed since Cliven and hundreds of supporters, including heavily armed militia members, faced off against the federal government in a sandy wash under a highway overpass in the Mojave Desert. Now, here in the comforts of the Bellagio, six documentary filmmakers trained bright lights and high-definition cameras on Ryan. They wanted to ask about the standoff. Wearing a cowboy hat, Ryan fidgeted before the cameras. He had told this story before; that wasn’t the reason for his nerves. After all, the Bundy confrontation made national news after armed agents with the Bureau of Land Management seized the Bundy family’s cattle following a trespassing dispute and the accumulation of more than $1 million in unpaid grazing fees. But the Bundys, aided by their armed supporters, beat back the government, forcing agents to release the cattle and retreat.
Images of armed Bundy supporters with high-powered rifles taking on outgunned BLM agents circulated widely on social media. As a result, the Bundys became a household name, lionized by the right as champions of individual liberty and vilified by the left as anti-government extremists.
But something seemed off to Ryan about this interview in the Bellagio. While the family’s newfound fame had attracted fresh supporters to their cause, it had also inspired suspicion. With a federal investigation looming, who among these new faces could they really trust?
Among the more recent figures in the Bundy orbit was this mysterious documentary film crew. The director, Charles Johnson, was middle-aged, with a silver goatee, slicked-back hair, and a thick southern accent. His assistant, who identified herself as Anna, was tall and blond. A website for their company, Longbow Productions, listed an address in Nashville, Tennessee, but the Bundys could find no previous examples of their work.
An excerpt from an interview that the purported Longbow Productions film crew conducted with Ryan Bundy, obtained by The Intercept.
As the cameras recorded, Ryan’s skepticism was plain. At times, his right eye rolled back into his head, the result of a childhood accident that paralyzed half of his face, and his gaze shifted to figures outside the shot. “There’s been a lot of red flags in the community about Longbow Productions,” one of his companions explained to the film crew. “No bullshit, straight talk. … It’s almost like you’re trying to make us incriminate ourselves.”
With a conspicuously placed copy of the U.S. Constitution poking out of his left breast pocket, Ryan turned his gaze to Johnson.
“We really do want to work with you, if that’s really what’s going on,” he said. But his family needed to know, “Is this just a mole project to garner information that will then be given to the feds?”
Johnson insisted the project was a legitimate endeavor. “I want a truthful documentary.”
“Alrighty,” Ryan said. “Let’s proceed.”
“Quiet on the set,” Johnson told his crew.
Ryan should have trusted his instincts. Johnson and his colleagues were not documentarians. They were undercover FBI agents posing as filmmakers. By the time they sat down with Ryan, Johnson and his team had spent eight months traveling to at least five states to film interviews with nearly two dozen people about the Bundy standoff, all part of an FBI effort to build criminal cases against the Bundys and their supporters.
The story of the FBI’s fake documentary crew, revealed in more than 100 hours of video and audio recordings obtained by The Intercept, offers an unprecedented window into how federal law enforcement agents impersonate journalists to gain access to criminal suspects. The raw material produced by the FBI was presented under seal in the U.S. District Court in Nevada, where Ryan Bundy, his father, Cliven, and his brothers, as well as more than a dozen supporters, were charged with conspiracy, assault, weapons offenses, and other crimes related to their standoff with the government.
An excerpt from an interview with Cliven Bundy, produced by undercover FBI agents posing as filmmakers and obtained by The Intercept.
The Bundys consider themselves true men and women of the American West. Cliven Bundy, a Mormon patriarch with 14 children and at least 60 grandchildren, operates a cattle ranch with his family 80 miles east of Las Vegas that was settled by Cliven’s ancestors in the 1880s. “The ranch has been home for me most all my life,” Cliven told Johnson and the other undercover FBI agents, believing they were making a documentary about his life and the standoff.
Cliven and his family aren’t wealthy ranchers, and their land has only offered a subsistence lifestyle at best. As generations of western ranchers have done, Cliven’s family built a home near a water source on private property and then allowed cattle to graze freely on surrounding lands owned by the U.S. government. A dilapidated semi-trailer, broken-down cars, old tires, and wooden shipping pallets litter the dirt road leading into the Bundy property. The ranch is set up like a wagon wheel, with the Bundy home at the center surrounded by irrigated fields of alfalfa and melons. From there, the ranch then extends out in every direction, covering more than 600,000 acres, counting government land, where Cliven’s 400 head of cattle graze.
The Bundy family’s dispute with the federal government began nearly 30 years ago, when conservation officials declared the desert tortoise an endangered species, resulting in severe restrictions to grazing rights for ranchers in Clark County, Nevada. Some of Cliven’s neighbors fought the government in court, but in time, all but Cliven abandoned their ranches. Cliven took another tack, refusing to renew his permit for grazing rights. He continued to allow his cattle to graze federal lands, damn the consequences. As far as Cliven was concerned, the land was public and no one was using it anyway. The government hauled Bundy into court, and in 1998, a U.S. District Court judge issued an order prohibiting Cliven from using the lands. Cliven refused to comply, and his unpaid grazing fees piled up, reaching more than $1 million. In July 2013, another District Court judge issued an order demanding that Cliven not trespass on federal lands. And then in April 2014, the Bureau of Land Management, with the help of so-called contract cowboys, began to round up Cliven’s trespassing cattle.
The roundup set off a storm of rumors among the Bundys and their local supporters — that the cattle were being mistreated, that they were dying or being killed intentionally, and that the government was burying them in mass graves. On April 9, the Bundys and other locals intercepted a convoy of contract cowboys protected by BLM agents. The crowd stopped the line of trucks in an attempt to see whether they were transporting dead cattle. A confrontation ensued. Cliven’s 57-year-old sister was thrown to the ground by a BLM agent. Cliven’s son Ammon kicked a BLM dog and was tased twice as result. All of it was captured on camera.
One video in particular, shot by Pete Santilli, blew up online and would later be referenced repeatedly by subjects in the FBI’s undercover documentary production. The clip, which has now been seen more than 1.8 million times on YouTube, turned Cliven’s story into a cause célèbre among rural conservatives, right-wing groups, and anti-government militias, who viewed the cattle roundup, and the force used during that confrontation, as an abuse of government power. Cliven, who had appeared on Santilli’s radio show the day before the clash describing how hundreds of contract cowboys protected by hundreds of armed federal agents were taking over his ranch, won a massive audience of fired-up supporters from around the country. “They have my home surrounded,” Cliven said. The news quickly spread through social media, fueled by photographs that appeared to show federal agents aiming sniper rifles from a hilltop. Sean Hannity soon interviewed Cliven on Fox News about the situation.
Cheered by Tea Party conservatives, the Bundys garnered public support from Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Dean Heller of Nevada. That support later faded after Cliven was caught on video making racist comments about “the negro” and suggesting that African-Americans would be “better off as slaves.” There was no question that the Bundys energized some devout bigots. Stanley Blaine Hicks, aka Blaine Cooper, a propagandist for the family’s cause, once filmed himself smearing a Quran with bacon, setting its pages on fire, then shooting it with a bow and arrow (he boasted about the stunt in a secretly recorded conversation with the FBI). At the same time, however, the family’s supporters were not a monolith. For many, the Bundys’ high-profile battle with the federal government became symbolic of economic and cultural losses that resonate deeply in western ranching communities.
Hundreds of people, including militia members with assault rifles, began to arrive at the Bundy ranch. “We need guns to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government,” said Jim Lordy, from Montana, in an interview with a Las Vegas TV news crew. Local authorities, in a poorly planned attempt to corral protesters into designated areas, set up zones marked by signs that read, “First Amendment Area.” The signs only inflamed perceptions that the government was overstepping its constitutional authority.
The protests grew so large that the Bundys’ supporters blocked a stretch of Interstate 15 between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. The situation came to a head on April 12, when scores of protesters confronted the BLM in a wash outside the Bundy ranch, as gunmen took up positions on the hillsides and overpasses around them. While the authorities had already set in motion plans to release the cattle the night before, the presence of so many armed militiamen, armed federal agents, and unarmed civilians escalated tensions dramatically. In its indictment against Cliven and his followers, the government would later describe the standoff as a “massive armed assault.” Fearing for the safety of its agents, and envisioning another violent showdown like the Ruby Ridge incident of 1992, the BLM released Cliven’s cattle that day and withdrew from land near the Bundy ranch on April 21, 2014.
Cliven had beaten the government, or so he thought. What he didn’t realize was that an undercover FBI investigation, intended to build cases against the Bundy patriarch and his supporters for what happened during the standoff, was about to begin.
The FBI office in Las Vegas called on an undercover agent using the name Charles Johnson to take part in an operation that would reveal how the Bundy protests were organized and whether anyone had violated federal law. They came up with the idea of creating a fake documentary production company whose filmmakers would interview Cliven and the protesters.
Johnson would later testify that the plan was “unique” and “a little bit different,” in that instead of seeking to expose a crime that had not yet happened, the fake documentary sought to uncover information “after the fact.”
The agent’s assessment was true, but it was also an understatement. Not only did the FBI’s plan involve detailing events that had already taken place, the events in question were widely documented, as was the involvement of the individuals the bureau ultimately targeted. A quick Google search would reveal hundreds of interviews, photographs, and social media posts chronicling nearly all those individuals’ participation in the standoff. What’s more, even if the undercover team could coax interviewees into making comments more incriminating than the information already available in the public sphere, any evidence gleaned from the operation would require disclosing in court that the FBI had taken the controversial step of impersonating journalists.
Despite a clear risk that considerable resources would be expended to gather publicly available information, incurring a guaranteed backlash from legitimate members of the news media along the way, Johnson and the FBI pressed on, setting up a fake website for the production company and deploying cameras, lights, sound equipment — everything they needed to appear professional — for the operation. The working title of the FBI’s documentary was “America Reloaded.”
While the scale of the operation was unlike anything that has been revealed in recent years, this wasn’t the first time FBI agents had impersonated the news media. In June 2007, a 15-year-old high school student near Seattle repeatedly emailed bomb threats to his school, causing daily evacuations of the building. Because the student used proxy servers to hide his location, the FBI was unable to track him. As a result, FBI agents posed as an Associated Press journalist and emailed the student individual links to a fake news article and photographs that surreptitiously installed a tracking program allowing the FBI to determine the student’s location.
When the FBI’s actions were revealed nearly seven years later, the Associated Press and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, representing 25 other news organizations, wrote letters to FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Eric Holder objecting to the practice of impersonating journalists in criminal investigations. In a November 6, 2014, letter to the New York Times, Comey defended the practice. “That technique was proper and appropriate under Justice Department and FBI guidelines at the time,” he wrote. “Today, the use of such an unusual technique would probably require higher level approvals than in 2007, but it would still be lawful and, in a rare case, appropriate.”
In June 2016, the FBI adopted an interim policy that requires undercover operations involving the impersonation of news media to be approved by the deputy director of the FBI in consultation with the deputy attorney general. Because the FBI’s fake documentary project in Nevada began before this policy was enacted, it’s unclear whether senior leaders at the FBI signed off. The FBI did not respond to questions for this story, including a request for that information. Instead, the bureau released only a prepared statement to The Intercept: “The FBI conducts investigative activity in accordance with the Attorney General’s Guidelines and the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide. These authorities provide safeguards intended to ensure that FBI employees act in accordance with the law and the Constitution.”
On the night of June 14, 2014, two months after BLM agents released Cliven Bundy’s cattle and retreated from the armed supporters, Johnson placed his first call to the Bundy ranch. The undercover FBI agent had hoped to speak to Cliven, but Cliven’s son Ammon took the call. If Johnson and his team had done their research, it was not evident from this first phone call. Despite the fact that Ammon was the most famous member of the Bundy clan after his father, the FBI agent appeared to have no idea who he was.
An excerpt from an audio recording of a phone call between undercover FBI agent Charles Johnson and Ammon Bundy.
Johnson laid out the “business opportunities” he envisioned for the Bundy family. “I do a lot of documentary work,” he said. “I’ve kind of been watching this situation unfold, kind of from a distance, and just to be real honest with you, I’m amazed at the support and the actual momentum that your dad has been able to gather. It’s truly impressive to me.” Johnson said his vision for the documentary was to tell the story of Cliven, whom he described as a “folk hero,” and the movement he inspired.
Ammon was not sold on the idea, explaining that his family had received many media and documentary requests since the standoff. “We want to reach a lot of people,” Ammon explained. “But we also can’t do 100 different documentaries.”
An excerpt from an audio recording of a phone call between undercover FBI agent Charles Johnson and Ammon Bundy.
Johnson then proposed buying the rights to the Bundy family’s story. But Ammon said they weren’t interested in money. “I’d be willing to meet and talk with you, but I think you need to get more familiar with the story first and then really see if you want to take on this thing,” Ammon said.
It was a rocky start for the undercover FBI operation, but the agents pushed forward. Less than two weeks later, Johnson, Anna, and at least two other undercover agents went to the Bundy ranch. As they rolled up on the property, Anna read into a concealed microphone the license plates of vehicles she saw.
A Go-Pro video, obtained by The Intercept, of undercover FBI agents arriving at the Bundy ranch.
“Someone’s walking towards us,” she then said. “Here we go.”
It was Brian Cavalier, a heavily tattooed supporter from Arizona. Cavalier wore a handgun holstered on his right hip and a hoop earring in one of his ears. Everyone around the Bundy ranch called him “Booda” for his bald head and round, hairless belly covered with a poorly sketched tattoo of the Chinese Buddha. He had joined the Bundys after watching the video of BLM agents tasing Ammon Bundy. He served as the Bundys’ bodyguard and in the months following the standoff became something of a gatekeeper to the family. As the undercover FBI agents arrived on the property, Cavalier informed them that their visit had not been approved, but he allowed them on the ranch anyway.
As they toured the property, Cavalier described his deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine, and his work with the mercenary company Blackwater.
“Did you ever kill anybody?” Anna asked.
“Yeah,” Cavalier said. “I was a United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper.”
(The U.S. Marine Corps has no record of Cavalier having served.)
The FBI team had come to the ranch to interview Cliven Bundy but only managed to interview Cavalier and Cliven’s wife, Carol. Had Cavalier or Carol known anything about filmmaking, the FBI’s on-camera interviews would have blown their cover. Both were interviewed outdoors, the Bundy matriarch in the harsh sunlight and Cavalier near a livestock pen where the winds were so gusty the audio is at times inaudible. They also filmed dubious B-roll of the ranch, with Johnson directing shots at the horizon, while the cameraman repeatedly directed his attention to the license plates of cars parked around the property. This wasn’t cinéma vérité; it was amateur hour. The FBI was just lucky no one at the Bundy ranch knew the difference.
Johnson considered the outing a success. “I think what today does is it gives us tremendous credibility,” he told his FBI colleagues in a conversation captured by hidden body microphones the agents wore.
But in the same conversation, Johnson admitted to concerns that they seemed to be documenting history, not investigating active crimes. “Do you think there’s any more stuff to be gotten out here?” Johnson asked one of his colleagues. “The problem is, we’re the last one to the dance.”
But Johnson’s fake documentary crew would get a lucky break. That afternoon, Cavalier, who was prone to running his mouth, offered a tantalizing lead when asked if the Bundys had any help from people in law enforcement. “There’s a finder’s fee,” Anna offered, suggesting the film crew was ready to pay for such information.
“Is the camera off now?” Cavalier asked.
“Can you turn it off?” Anna said to the cameraman. The body mic Anna wore continued to record the conversation.
An excerpt from an interview with Brian “Booda” Cavalier, produced by undercover FBI agents posing as filmmakers and obtained by The Intercept.
“The information I can give you is very, very sensitive,” Cavalier said. “I can tell you this much, just to give you a taste: Every three days, Mr. Bundy’s name is ran through a database to check for any wants or warrants, because if they’re going to come down here and serve warrants or do anything stupid, they’re going to come that way first.” As for compensation, Cavalier added, it was on the film crew to make an offer. “It’s gonna cost you something, because my ass is on the line and I don’t put my ass on the line for nobody,” he said.
Less than a week later, Johnson and his crew met Cavalier in a Las Vegas hotel room. They filmed the bodyguard in disguise. The lights were turned down. With a green scarf over his face, Cavalier made claims about the Bundys’ penetration of law enforcement, saying they had sources at the BLM and the FBI. Cavalier said that he regularly contacted law enforcement during the standoff to run background checks on individuals showing up at the ranch.
“We definitely ran you guys and found out that you’re not related to FBI, BLM, or ATF,” Cavalier told the undercover agents.
Whether Cavalier’s claims about government sources were true is unclear. What is clear, however, is that questions surrounding law enforcement support for the Bundys became part of a broader script the FBI deployed throughout the summer of 2014 in phone conversations and sit-down interviews conducted with individuals present during the standoff.
Anna coordinated the interviews. The undercover agent would call subjects with a general framing of the documentary, enthusiastically describing the Bundy standoff as the American people’s first victory in standing up to the U.S. government in 200 years. Then, presenting herself as a scatterbrained journalist with zero understanding of the Bundys or militia movements in general, Anna would ask interviewees if they feared for their lives during the standoff, if they were willing to die for their cause, and if they were prepared to take a life for the movement.
Despite a deep-seated distrust of the U.S. government, often rooted in right-wing conspiracy theories, a majority of the people Anna contacted were more than willing to describe their views and participation in the events that day with what appeared to be a somewhat clueless member of the press.
On August 4, 2014, Anna called a Bundy supporter named Greg Burleson, who claimed to have spent more than a decade among Arizona’s right-wing extremists, for a time taking part in vigilante border patrols with J.T. Ready, a neo-Nazi who murdered his girlfriend and members of her family before killing himself in 2012. “I am a freaking wild man,” Burleson told Anna during their second conversation.
Burleson appeared to be exactly the type of character the FBI was hoping to find. He was hardly in hiding, though. Both before and after the Bundy standoff, Burleson posted Facebook status updates threatening to kill members of law enforcement and asserting that he had pointed his weapon at BLM agents in Nevada. And if the FBI team wanted further information on him, they could have called their colleagues in Arizona, where Burleson had worked as a paid FBI informant.
Over the years, Burleson had provided information to agents in Phoenix, and in 2013, his FBI handler transferred him to Special Agent Adam Nixon, who later participated in the investigations of the Bundys. For reasons that have not been disclosed, Nixon closed Burleson as an informant. By the time Anna called, Burleson was off the FBI books.
Burleson’s eccentricities and paranoia were evident from the beginning. During one call with Anna, he answered the phone with a fake accent. “I do that because I’ve got people targeting me now,” he explained. Burleson later claimed to have access to sensitive law enforcement documents proving he was being watched.
The Longbow Productions team interviewed Burleson on camera on October 28, 2014, at the FireSky Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona. A rangy man with a ponytail and a thick mustache, Burleson wore a pistol to the taping and said his AK was in the car.
“Would you like something to drink?” Johnson asked him.
Burleson asked for bourbon. “No chaser,” he added.
Hidden cameras recorded as the FBI agents got acquainted with their interview subject. They reviewed a map of the area around the Bundy ranch, with Burleson describing where he had been positioned during the standoff. Once the lights were on and his interview began, Burleson, bourbon in hand, described his bloodlust for federal agents. “I literally went there to put them six feet under,” he said.
An excerpt from an interview with Greg Burleson, produced by undercover FBI agents posing as filmmakers.
Burleson told the crew that he had taken aim at specific people that day — “I leveled off and I sighted-in the people that I was targeting” — with the hope that the situation would turn violent. “A lot of people say, ‘Thank god it wasn’t bloody,’” Burleson added. “I’m saying, ‘Damn, I’m disappointed.’”
While it was the FBI’s former informant who expressed the greatest desire for violence to the fake documentary crew, the bureau’s own recordings show the Arizona militiaman’s eagerness to do battle with the federal government was not shared by many of the Bundy standoff participants.
Eric Parker, who was featured in an iconic image of the standoff pointing his rifle in the direction of federal agents, made it clear to the undercover FBI team that he had no interest in bloodshed. An electrician from Idaho, Parker was hesitant to meet with the filmmakers and expressed his concerns that discussing the events that day could leave him legally exposed. At the same time, Parker was deeply frustrated with how the story had been presented. “We were all pinged as right-wing extremists and gun nuts,” he said during his first call with Anna. Still, he said, his lawyer had given him strict guidance on talking to the press.
“This is not about getting people in trouble,” Anna assured him. “This is about spreading your message.”
Parker eventually agreed to take part in the project. On August 17, 2014, the Longbow crew traveled to a lodge in Montana, where Parker and his family, along with his friend and fellow standoff participant Scott Drexler, were planning a relaxing weekend of fishing in the mountains. Parker took a seat on a porch outside.
An excerpt from an interview with Eric Parker, produced by undercover FBI agents posing as filmmakers.
In the two-hour interview, Parker explained that his motivation for traveling to Nevada was twofold. First, he saw the video depicting the BLM tasing Cliven’s son and throwing his sister to the ground as part of a broader trend of police brutality. Second, he viewed the establishment of the free speech zones, coupled with the presence of well-armed federal agents, as an attack on the First Amendment. By traveling to Nevada with weapons, Parker explained, he and his friends hoped to prevent what they viewed as unlawful arrests or use of force against protesters.
“They got 200 armed men with body armor rolling around,” he said. “We need 200 armed men with body armor rolling around.” Far from the coordinated operation government prosecutors would later allege, Parker said the actual confrontation was disorganized and ultimately terrifying. “I thought we would be there, armed, of course, and stand our ground and make sure the protesters don’t get pepper-sprayed and make sure that the illegal arrests stopped,” he explained. “I wouldn’t have thought in 100 years we would be on a bridge staring down federal agents.”
When he took his position on the pavement, the moment when the famous photo was taken, Parker said his hands were shaking.
“How do you acquire your target?” Johnson asked him.
“There’s no picking the target,” Parker answered. “I wasn’t chambered, and my finger wasn’t on the trigger. … Nobody wanted to die.”
On November 14, 2014, Anna called Ryan Bundy. She told Ryan she was with Longbow Productions and reminded him that they had filmed at the ranch in June. Anna then asked if they could set up a time during the first week of December to interview Ryan, his father, and his brothers Ammon and Melvin in a hotel room in Las Vegas. She even offered tickets to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas that week.
“I’d go for that,” Ryan said with excitement. “It’s been a few years since I’ve got to go to the NFR. So I’d go for that.”
An excerpt from an audio recording of a phone call between an undercover FBI agent and Ryan Bundy.
After talking for a few more minutes, Ryan asked Anna about the documentary: What would it be about? When would it be released?
“We want the American citizens to know that for the first time in almost 200 years, normal, average citizens, hardworking Americans, stood up, and they stood up against, you know, the tyrannical government, and they were able to get the government to back down,” Anna explained. It was a line she had used many times.
“So who’s your audience?” Ryan asked.
“I’d like to get it out to all America,” Anna answered.
Ryan told Anna he’d check with his father and brothers about coordinating interviews, but he remained suspicious and began to investigate Longbow Productions. Three days later, Anna called again.
“I just want to be straight forward with you,” Ryan told her. “With your company, there’s been a bunch of red flags go up in our mind. And that hasn’t happened with a lot of other companies.”
“OK,” Anna said.
“Now, we looked up your address, and it looks like your business is being run out of a federal building,” Ryan said. “Is that correct?”
“What?” Anna said, her voice rising.
“Is your address to your main company a federal building in Nashville, Tennessee?”
“No,” Anna said, giving Ryan an address to an office building about a mile from Vanderbilt University.
“But that’s not a federal building?” Ryan asked.
“No,” Anna insisted.
An excerpt from an audio recording of a phone call between an undercover FBI agent and Ryan Bundy.
It’s unclear why Ryan thought the government owned the building. In fact, it’s a BlueCross BlueShield corporate building. But Ryan was indeed onto something; he just didn’t fully understand what. Ryan explained that he was concerned after hearing from other interviewees that the filmmakers had been asking questions about guns and ammo. “We deem those questions to be inappropriate,” Ryan said. “The Second Amendment gives us the right to keep and bear arms, and it doesn’t matter whether we have a BB gun or something bigger.” He also expressed concern that his family couldn’t find previous examples of Longbow’s work. Ryan said he suspected the filmmakers could be government spies.
“I’m not a liar,” Anna replied.
But Anna was a liar, and a good one, skilled enough to undercut Ryan’s suspicions and persuade him, his father, and his brothers to sit for interviews. Three weeks after this phone call, Cliven Bundy arrived at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Cliven, dressed in a tan hat and a black leather vest, sat in the same white leather chair. The framing for the shot was sloppy: A white piece of trim molding can be seen running vertically across the left side of frame. The corner of a large, generic piece of floral hotel artwork dominated the right side of the frame. No professional cinematographer would have approved the shot.
Johnson, conducting the interview, asked Cliven about the militias, appearing to probe whether Cliven was coordinating their actions at the standoff. But Cliven maintained the armed groups just showed up; he had nothing to do with it. “The ranch was out of control,” Cliven said. “The feds had total control of everything there.”
“People either look at you as a folk hero or kind of a — that you were the one who instigated it, because if you were just doing what was right, why did you need all those people? How would you respond to that?” Johnson asked.
“I mean, you know, I gotta face this,” Cliven said. “And the militia steps up there, and they do a service for me. Now as far as I can say, all I can say is that I’m thankful for that service.”
What’s extraordinary about Cliven’s interview is that, despite spending nearly a year trying to get the rancher before the camera, the FBI couldn’t get him to say anything that he wouldn’t otherwise gladly say to legitimate radio and TV stations. Cliven even alluded to this in his interview. “Almost every day I have an opportunity to talk to people, just like I’m talking to you,” he said. “Every day I have that opportunity. Today, I’ve already did a couple of interviews. I interviewed with a magazine, a newspaper. I know three interviews with radio on my board there I haven’t taken care of.” To Cliven, Johnson and the undercover FBI agents were just another group of journalists.
About two months later, Johnson and his crew traveled to Arizona, where they filmed Ammon in a similarly unrevealing interview, despite Johnson’s repeated attempts to goad Ammon into talking about the potential for violence at the standoff.
“If this escalated and was not peaceful, did you think you might have to take a life?” Johnson asked at one point.
“I never did once think I’d have to take a life, because I knew that my stand would be one where someone would take my life and they would do it with me standing against them but not threatening their life,” Ammon told the undercover FBI agents.
A drone video taken during the anniversary of the standoff at the Bundy ranch.
Then, in April 2015, the Longbow Productions crew returned to the Bundy ranch for the anniversary of the standoff. The Bundys had set up a small makeshift stage below the overpass where the standoff occurred. About 100 white folding chairs were set up in front of the stage.
Anna, wearing a body mic, once again walked around the ranch and read aloud the license plates of cars parked there. The FBI agents brought a quadcopter drone with them. In the afternoon, as people of all ages milled about the stage, setting up for the event, the agents flew the drone high above to capture the scene. As it came down to land, the highway overpass visible in the background, a young girl ran over in bare feet, looking at the drone in amazement.
The drone then took off again, and down below, Bundy supporters could be seen staring up at the flying camera — unaware that they were being filmed as part of a U.S. government production.
The Bundy family describes their standoff with the government and the people from around the country who came to their aid as a movement. It’s a strong word for what occurred, but not entirely inaccurate. Proof of that came a few months after the FBI shuttered its fake documentary operation, when Ammon Bundy began to publicize on social media the criminal cases of two Oregon ranchers.
Like Cliven Bundy, Dwight Lincoln Hammond and his son Steven Dwight Hammond had a decadeslong antagonistic relationship with the Bureau of Land Management. The two Oregon ranchers were convicted at trial in 2012 of setting fire to federal lands on which the Hammonds had grazing rights for cattle. The Hammonds argued that the five-year mandatory minimum sentence that came with the charges was unconstitutional, and a U.S. District Court judge agreed, sentencing Dwight to three months in prison and Steven to one year and a day. They served those sentences, but an appeals court vacated them, and another federal judge sentenced the pair to the mandatory minimum of five years.
Ammon and Ryan Bundy saw similarities in their own family’s struggles with the government. They traveled to Oregon in late 2015 to help the Hammonds, who declined the offer of assistance. So the Bundy brothers, accompanied by three dozen supporters, including Cavalier and several others from the Nevada standoff, took over a U.S. government building at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon. Ammon, naming his group the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, then posted videos to social media calling on militants to join them in Oregon. Local police and federal officials surrounded the government building. The Bundy family was again at the center of a national story.
For more than a month, the Bundys and their supporters holed up in the building while federal agents, concerned about a gunfight that could leave dozens dead, waited them out. On January 26, 2016, a Jeep and a Dodge Ram pickup left the wildlife refuge. Ammon and Cavalier were in the Jeep. Inside the pickup were Ryan Bundy and four supporters, including Robert “LaVoy” Finicum. FBI and Oregon police vehicles pulled over the Jeep. Ammon and Cavalier surrendered, but the pickup, driven by Finicum, took off at high speed. As he approached a roadblock, Finicum’s truck plowed into a snowbank. He exited the vehicle, and the FBI and Oregon police opened fire, killing Finicum and wounding Ryan Bundy. (FBI agents are under investigation for alleged misconduct in the shooting.)
The shootout and the arrests were followed by federal indictments against 38 people, charging the group members with various crimes related to the standoffs at the Bundy ranch and Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. So far, the government’s record in prosecuting the Bundys and their supporters has been mixed. Three supporters have pleaded guilty and another six, including former FBI informant Greg Burleson, have been convicted at trial. But seven have been acquitted, and a trial in Nevada last month resulted in a hung jury for four defendants, including Eric Parker. The stakes will be raised in Las Vegas on June 26, when the trial of Cliven Bundy and his sons is scheduled to begin. Federal prosecutors plan to play clips from “America Reloaded.”
Terrance Jackson, Burleson’s attorney, plans to appeal his client’s conviction. Burleson is facing a minimum of 57 years in prison. “I think the FBI used their resources to go after the people that are the least culpable,” Jackson told The Intercept, adding, “They used methods that need to be carefully scrutinized.” Jess Marchese, Eric Parker’s attorney, said a number of the jurors he spoke to were turned off by the government’s presentation of the Longbow evidence.
Beyond its implications in the Bundy case specifically, the FBI’s decision to create a fake media company raises critical questions about the federal government’s practice of impersonating the press. Following the 2014 revelations that it had been impersonated by the FBI, the Associated Press, along with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, filed a lawsuit demanding more detail on the FBI’s practice of posing as journalists, arguing that “the practice endangers the media’s credibility and undermines its independence.” In February, a federal judge ruled that the FBI has said enough about the matter. To date, it is unclear how many times, or how often, the bureau has deployed agents under the guise of newsgathering.
Following the flurry of arrests last year, several of the targets of the Longbow investigation were interviewed by federal agents. Summaries of their conversations were written up in FBI reports obtained by The Intercept. Brian Cavalier, the Bundy bodyguard who first allowed the crew onto the ranch, reportedly “felt that the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders when he was arrested,” telling the FBI that he never believed in the Oregon occupation and that several of the individuals there “did not want the occupation to end peacefully.” Greg Burleson, for all his tough talk about killing federal agents, was arrested without incident outside his apartment in Phoenix — he has lost his vision in the months since he traveled to Nevada and now uses a wheelchair. While he stood by his decision to take part in the standoff, Burleson reportedly told the FBI that “if he had it to do all over again, he would do a little more research.”
Eric Parker, the man from the famed sniper photo, was arrested on March 3, 2016. In a 10-page account of his conversation with his arresting agents, Parker said he had been contacted by at least two organizations “offering to put armed security at his house to shoot it out with the FBI when they arrived.” Parker said he declined because he “does not want to see any violent confrontation with the FBI.” Parker was the only standoff participant who mentioned his brush with a suspicious documentary film crew.
“A media company called Longbow Productions later interviewed Parker for a documentary about the Bundy situation, but the movie has never been released,” Parker’s arresting agent noted. “Parker believes the documentary film crew must be associated with the FBI.”
No such thing as “grazing rights”, only grazing permits.
I find it kind of odd how the” Black lives matter” or BLM formed right when the talks against the “Bureau of land management” heated up about how they burned fields containing the rancher’s cattle & these farmers homes
All of a sudden BLM meant “black lives matter” so many people confused the two.
I heard people saying stuff like why would black lives matter burn these ranchers cattle and stuff like that. I might be wrong but it is an odd coincidence
i make no defense of the fbi, but the bottom line remains: this family can pay the blm a pittance for the next thousand years to graze cattle on public lands, but they will never own it. this land is owned by you, me, and them. leaving the land to nature would be the greatest benefit to all of us.
[[[ this land is owned by you, me, and them. ]]]
Your name ain’t on the deed. Neither is mine.
The deed is written in the Name of the State of Nevada. You don’t live there. Neither do I.
“The deed is written in the Name of the State of Nevada. You don’t live there. Neither do I.”
You don’t have to live there to be able to look up the name on the deed.
The name on the Deed for the land in question here is not “State of Nevada.”
Instead, the name on the deed is “USA.” Taske Clark County NV parecel # 07300001009 for example:
Parcel: 07300001009
Owner Name(s): USA
640 acres
Sigh. So close… OK first none of them are “anti-government” How can you be “anti-government” if your desire and intent is to have the government follow the Constitution? How can one be Pro-Constitution, yet “anti-government”. It can’t happen. Secondly, carrying legal, 2nd amendment firearms to a protest is not a problem. Just because one carries does not mean they have ANY intention of using their weapon. The only one pointing their weapons at men, women and children with the INTENTION of using force (listen to the dash cam recordings if you think otherwise) against the people they believed to be the enemy, instead of the fine, peaceful, principled Americans they are..was the BLM. This article also fails to mention that Cliven is/was more than happy to pay grazing fees to Clark County, just NOT the BLM because he believes, and rightly so, they should not get it as they are an unConstitutional agency. I don’t want to write a book about the other mis-characterizations here. You did get some things right, but it’s always those parts left out, or skewed that leave people uninformed, and therefore unable to make accurate conclusions. Sad.
I suggest if anyone wants to REALLY know what the supporters at Bunkerville, and Malheur are all about, get their butts to Pahrump, NV this weekend and see for yourself. Search Camp Liberty Update on You Tube for info on the stand against prison abuse and support for the Bundy defense team.
What this article fails to tell about Bundy and his grazing fees is about the details of the endangered species BS.
This was made to force Bundy and the other ranchers to decrease not only the amount of cattle they could graze but also the time.
BLM was allowing only about half of his cattle to graze and only from the summer to winter. Most people don’t know about raising cattle and not calves are born in the spring and along with their mothers, need the fresh green vegetation that only the spring provides.
BLM wouldn’t allow for this, which would have put Bundy out of business and that’s exactly what happened to the other 51 ranchers that did pay their fees. Did you ever stop to ask why all the other ranchers sold? Because the BLM managed and bankrupted them out of business!
What this story also fails to tell you is that it’s not that Bundy refused to pay his fees. He stopped paying because BLM wouldn’t accept his fees unless he agreed to the contract of grazing approximately 50% less cattle and only during the hot desert summer and winter.
Bundy refused to sign the same contract that managed the other 51 ranchers out of business so the BLM refused to accept his grazing fees and therefore would not give him a permit to graze. Bundy then paid his fees to Clark County Nevada where they accepted them the first year.
And yes they are our public lands. Bundy is part of the public remember?
[[[ BLM wouldn’t allow for this, which would have put Bundy out of business and that’s exactly what happened to the other 51 ranchers that did pay their fees. Did you ever stop to ask why all the other ranchers sold? Because the BLM managed and bankrupted them out of business! ]]]
That’s exactly correct.
Bundy has been a ranching family for ~150 years. They’ve managed to survive IN THE DESERT (which is TOUGH!).
Range wars between ranchers have been minimized by the govt since the 1930s.
How did they do it?
They put the farmers and ranchers out of business and replaced them with corporate “state farms” — such as ADM, Tyson Foods, General Mills, Monsanto, etc. (Federal ‘policies’ since the 1980s have wiped out most family farms).
What do you get out of the deal? You eat GMO. And pay double for “organic.”
What kind of an idiot would try to raise cattle in a desert?
Mormons…. ???
I assume you’ve never been to western or southern Texas, Arizona, South Dakota, North Dakota, and eastern Wyoming or South Dakota. Try Mexico. Same problem.
Lots of bovine out of all those areas.
It takes A LOT of acres per head to feed a cow or sheep.
Thus, the BLM is trying to put Bundy in the poor house. “War on Poverty”??? More appropriate to say… turn the West into the Ghettos of South Chicago.
Well, I can tell you that by his strong character, family, and values, and the fact that he was successful in all those areas…a pretty smart one, I’d say.
What “most people don’t know,”, like you, is that cattle should not even be allowed in the west because they do immense ecological and environmental damage there. It would be great if the ranchers were all put out of business and the land were turned into national parks and restored to what it was before the damn cattle were allowed to destroy it.
You moron.
We should kill all of the vegetarian mammals in the desert.
I’d like to kill a few Mustangs, myself. We can call out the militia to kill off all the buffalo and antelope.
Nail the Bundys for not paying taxes which they admit and not paying grazing rights. Then nail for pointing guns at federal officers. Don’t need a stupid movie cover story. And ready how inept the FBI was – I have my doubts they can do a proper investigation to put Trump away like he should be.
You have just given me a brilliant idea! I take back all my criticism of the FBI posing as journalists.
This is the plan. The FBI infiltrates Breitbart news. A cooperative breitbart “reporter” ingratiates herself to Trump (ingratiate is much nicer description than “suck up”!). Obviously the reporter should be a sexually attractive blonde female. She gets Trump to reveal where the bodies are buried and then, as the Brits say, “Bobs your auntie”!
After this the FBI should, of course, put all kinds of restrictions on undercover investigations. We should only allow this nominal “adjustment” of the rules on rare occasions and by people of unimpeachable integrity. Since my moral values are demonstrably superior to everyone else’s, I feel a personal responsibility to shoulder this burden.
Don’t bother thanking me. Basking in the glow of my own righteousness is reward enough.
Let’s get everyone that does not / did not pay their taxes; shall we start in the 1700s? Shit load o money! Make money money, make money money! Take money money…
Jeff M-
” my doubts they can do a proper investigation to put Trump away”
What hypocritical sh!ts you DemoRats are. You loved the FBIwhen they were gang stalking/StingRaying/ warrantlessly abusing Tea partiers and right wingers, but now that your Queen has been castrated[….] and your ‘spirit cooking’ tools are in Trumps hands, your all butthertz that you might get some payback.
What cowards- everyone loves abuse of power when it is them abusing power. Tell me that joke again about ‘transparency’ and ‘change’ that Obama told in 2008- then, reflect on who it is should be in jail.
This article would be a lot more persuasive if you spent more time on why the FBI shouldn’t impersonate journalists and less on “and the FBI agents were TERRIBLE cinematographers”.
The U.S. Marine Corps has no record of Cavalier having served.)
Burleson added.
Ryan was indeed onto something; he just didn’t fully understand what.
But Anna was a liar, and a good one, skilled enough to undercut Ryan’s suspicions and persuade him, his father, and his brothers to sit for interviews.
In all seriousness I hope the people who murdered Finicum are charged and convicted.
The U.S. Marine Corps has no record of Cavalier having served.)
Burleson added.
Ryan was indeed onto something; he just didn’t fully understand what.
But Anna was a liar, and a good one, skilled enough to undercut Ryan’s suspicions and persuade him, his father, and his brothers to sit for interviews.
All jokes aside I hope the people who murdered Finicum end up in prison – oh well.
I am so glad you brought up this subject. Last night I watched a PBS Frontline documentary about it. First, I am no admirer of the Bundys. Cliven owes the tax payers of America $1M for grazing his cattle on land that we own, not him. Somehow he figures that makes him oppressed. And what fascinating insights he has on race relations! Well at least his merry band of whack jobs isolates itself so I don’t have to worry about them as neighbors.
That being said, the FBI was way way out of bounds using phony journalists. This can only turn out badly in the future. The western US is full of cranks like the Bundys. What will they assume when the next person calling himself a journalist asks for an interview? If I were a journalist in the western US I’d invest in some good kevlar.
What’s next for FBI undercover operations? Priests? Nuns? Lawyers? How about Red Cross workers or maybe infiltrate Doctors Without Borders? The ends justify the means right?
This reminds me of the fake vaccination program run by the CIA as a means to locate Osama bin Laden. I think the doctor who was involved is still rotting in a Pakistan prison. What must it be like now for real health care workers trying to convince people to get vaccines? How many people have died or gotten something like polio because they didn’t trust the health care workers?
We have to have limits. We have to have rules.
This explains PresObama great discomfort about “real continual journalists” heknew what he was talking about, not unreasonable from his side of the fence.
The federal government has an army of planted sources all throughout America. There’s hundreds of thousands of FBI informants, not to mention CIA + military plants.
America was conceived as a nation with limited federal power. The idea of America has eroded over time. The Founding Fathers would have puked at the idea of the FBI, CIA, and NSA. They’re people who aren’t elected who have massive secret powers over the American people. The American Revolution was fought precisely because we didn’t want that type of structure.
if they arresting these people based on the things said in their ‘documentary’, how is that not entrapment?
In criminal law, entrapment is a practice whereby a law enforcement agent induces a person to commit a criminal offence that the person would have otherwise been unlikely to commit. It “is the conception and planning of an offence by an officer, and his procurement of its commission by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion or fraud of the officer.”
And Let us not forget from whence came the latest “fake news” fiasco in print reporting – the day before Thanksgiving, 2016 – in defense of the newly “elected” Administration – it seemed. The Washington Post! On the front, efin’ page, it printed an unproven claim, made by an unknown actor, from the Internet – and was unleashed upon us citizenry by Bezos and company. Lets go back to late November, 2016:
The Daily Beast – http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/09/washington-post-on-the-fake-news-hot-seat
The Rolling Stone Magazine – http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/washington-post-blacklist-story-is-shameful-disgusting-w452543
A virtual storm of 7,000 comments hammered the WaPo – a torrential fiasco. The fake news claims, ON THE FRONT PAGE of WaPo – happened to attack only the Indy News Media! (And a few establishment liberal media icons on the Left)! “Fake” is now a household name. Thanks Jeff! Now, little to nothing is sacred in America, not even the protection of the Fourth Estate, protected in Our Constitution! The new normal – Fake news is here to stay, if we let it. Fake news, I believe was produced by stupid rich people, with more money than brains. Reminds me of the premise of fake news, used to anchor the plot in the movie blockbuster, “Wag the Dog”.
This Bundy Family, fake documentary incident, adds to a continuing, solidifying pattern, of a recurring historical malfeasance by the elites (and their governing bodies) at any time in world history. A malfeasance, that only hard-hitting Indy Journalism, by fearless reporters – at like The Intercept (and 200 others that were slandered by the WaPo), can sledge-hammer back into the dustbin of any given time.
thanks for this most important reflection!
While I have written several comments here expressing my position that the Bundys are the biggest villains here, I agree that 1) the FBI is pure evil, always has been, and 2) the government should generally not be allowed to impersonate journalists, though I’d make an exception here due to the extreme harms that the Bundys were causing.
Pay for your grazing rights, what is it $2.73 per cow calf unit, what a gimme. The reason they only bury ranchers and farmers 3 feet under the ground when they die is so they can still get their handout.
What? Those ranchers are the Noguvminthandout Crew ;-)
[[[ Longbow Productions ]]]
I would’ve been alerted to the FBI ruse by the “name” alone.
The whole thing stinks. The BLM became nothing more than cattle wrustlers. In the not-too-distant-past, they were hung by the neck on public square.
When I was a kid, we’d stakeout the ranch when rustlers were on the loose. We had a right to kill them (reasonable force) when we’d catch them in the act, too.
Rustlers will either steal whole cows or butcher them right in the pasture — usually taking their front and hind quarters.
The Bundy Ranch is in the middle of something known as “open range” country. Montana is also open range. Many places still are.
The rule is: If you don’t like it… build a fence.
THE SOLUTION: The Federal Government can build a friggin’ fence if they want to keep the ranchers out.
They’d rather steal cows.
You’ve repeated your bullshit about the government “rustling” cattle several times. The FACTS are that 1) ranchers who graze on public lands pay about 1/10 of the grazing fee that they’d pay for grazing on private lands, so they graze on public lands at a HUGE discount; and 2) these assholes weren’t even paying that, so the government had every right to seize their cattle and sell them to pay Bundy’s debt. Taking money from deadbeats like the Bundys to pay their debts is not theft, it’s justice.
THE LAW: NRS?568.355??“Open range” defined.??As used in NRS 568.360 and 568.370, unless the context otherwise requires, “open range” means ALL UNENCLOSED LAND outside of cities and towns upon which cattle, sheep or other domestic animals by CUSTOM, license, lease or permit are grazed or permitted to roam.
NRS?568.240??Customary or established use: Definition; change.
1.??Customary or established use as graziers, otherwise than under operation of law, as used in NRS 568.230 to 568.290, inclusive, shall be deemed to include the CONTINUOUS, OPEN, NOTORIOUS, PEACEABLE and public use of such range seasonally for a period of 5 years or longer immediately before March 30, 1931, by the person or the person’s grantors or predecessors in interest, except in cases where initiated without protest or conflict to prior use or occupancy thereof.
2.??Any change in customary use so established must not be made after March 30, 1931, so as to prevent, restrict or interfere with the customary or established use of any other person or persons.
[Part 1:226:1931; 1931 NCL § 5581]—(NRS A 1985, 526)
NRS?568.250??Continued use by established user not prohibited.??NRS 568.230 to 568.290, inclusive, does not prohibit any such established user from continuing his or her grazing use, as established by operation of law or in accordance with such customs.
[2:226:1931; 1931 NCL § 5581.01]—(NRS A 1985, 526)
“CUSTOM”…. BUNDY IS HEREDITARY USAGE DATING BACK TO THE 1800s…. aka “grandfather clause.” “Open and Notorious”
It didn’t become “unpeaceable” until Bundy’s cows were rustled (and sold by bounty-hunter-rustlers) and they were personally tazered and attacked by a communist dog(s).
OK, “deplorable”s, and other persons of interest. Use any mass media at your peril. The press is no priesthood. It can grant but not extend source protection. When you are being investigated for a serious crime you need a lawyer not a reporter. The reporter wants you to talk the lawyer to remain silent. If you want due process when you’ve got your ass in a world of trouble “Better call Saul ” or you’re going to meet Bubba.
How can they use this film? Doesn’t it violate their 5th amendment right
It was shown last night on PBS.
I see some people below the fold still have difficulty with the notion of defending someone’s rights even if the someone is objectionable.
And all this money for desert tortoises!
their right to steal from the public? and overgraze public land? i don’t buy it.
The most important “right” is the right of ALL SPECIES to be able to live and thrive naturally. Property rights and economic rights for humans are minor details compared to that.
[[[ The most important “right” is the right of ALL SPECIES to be able to live and thrive naturally. Property rights and economic rights for humans are minor details compared to that. ]]]
I bet you like sharing your dinner with those various SPECIES of COCKROACHES in your kitchen.
Jurassic Park, anyone?
The BLM is just one of the UN Agenda 21 tentacles.
Great article, Thanks.
People like the Bundys are the worst the U.S. has to offer, and that’s saying quite a bit. First and foremost, the grazing industry has caused more environmental damage to the western U.S. than any other industry — some people say more than all other industries combined. Suffice to say, the damage is massive and extreme.
Additionally, it figures that these extreme assholes are Mormons, the most evil religion on Earth. Mormons support large families, thus adding to overpopulation, the biggest problem on Earth, kidnapped Native American children from their homes to indoctrinate them into the Mormon religion — I have several friends to whom this happened; fortunately they escaped back to their reservations when they were old enough to do so — and are hardcore environmentalists, to the point where they beat up environmentalists in Utah when they get a chance.
On top of all that, the Bundys and their ilk think that their personal freedoms are more important than the environment and than society as a whole.
So screw these people, I hope they lock them up and throw away the key. It would be great if we could eliminate these types from our planet.
I meant hardcore anti-environmentalists. This site should add an editing feature.
@Jeff D-you must work in a government agency or are un-American or both! “On top of all that, the Bundys and their ilk think that their personal freedoms are more important than the environment and than society as a whole.” Personal freedoms are AMERICAN as it gets! You don’t like it here in America, leave or don’t come and visit. We don’t want you here!
If Bundys cattle caused such environmental damage as you say then they wouldn’t be able to graze, moron! Pull your head out of your ass!
Triggered much? LOL. Look, The Bundy are CLOWNS period and their privilege was shown on a national and international scale. I don’t know about cattle raising and its impact on the environment, but your missing the point. Bundy used government land without paying taxes for years for his cattle; so YES, they would have been able to get away with poor environmental activities or habits.
[[[ I don’t know about cattle raising and its impact on the environment, but your missing the point. Bundy used government land without paying taxes for years ]]]
I know about raising cows in “open range” country. I’ve captured cattle rustlers.
I suggest you look it up on Wikipedia… “open range.”
Also know this: Did you know that J D Rockefeller likes to steal cows? He does. He’s the one who started the National Park system so he could steal cows. His first rustling project: THe “open range” country surrounding Devil’s Tower Wyoming.
It’s been going on for 100 years. “Copper Collars”
THe
I do not work for the government. In fact, I’ve made a career challenging the government for failing to protect our public lands. I was born here but I would not choose to be here if not for that; you can decide whether that makes me “American” or “un-American.” As to you not wanting me here, the feeling is mutual. I tried to leave once, but couldn’t get citizenship elsewhere.
As to your ridiculous claim that, “If Bundys cattle caused such environmental damage as you say then they wouldn’t be able to graze,” you’re clueless. I was a campaigner on this issue for an environmental group for years, and I probably forgot more about it than you know. The BLM and Forest Service, which manage the federal lands on which cattle are grazed, do a HORRIBLE job of protecting their lands. They are far more concerned with aiding the grazing, mining, and logging industries than protecting the land.
@Jeff D-Yes, if Bundy’s cattle damaged the environment then grazing would stop.
According to you the marvel known as the GRAND CANYON is a massive example of the destruction of land; therefore, the Colorado River needs to be diverted so the big hole it created can be filled in.
I’m positive you can leave America and stay gone. Don’t be a quitter!
[[[ They are far more concerned with aiding the grazing, mining, and logging industries than protecting the land. ]]]
You should get together with the Rockefellers. They helped the govt create the “federal reserve” (including the BLM) so they could mine gold, silver, copper, uranium, zinc, aluminum, coal, oil … the same BLM that likes to kill cowboys cuz the cows eat desert grass and cactus sprouts.
the cops and lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians dba government need us to convict each other in order for their machinery of government to keep running. They rely on the idea that a man or woman is innocent until found guilty before a jury in order to maintain the perception that they are “fair”.
Most jurors, from what I hear, don’t realize that they can find a man to be innocent for any reason. Imagine what would happen to the scam known as government if we simply refused to condemn men like Cliven Bundy. I’m more of an authority than anyone you listen to, to be sure.
As evil as the U.S. government is, which is plenty, people like the Bundys are far worse. The natural environment is more important than everything else put together, because it’s the basis of all life on Earth. Your arguments about the government are thus minor details here.
[[[ The natural environment is more important than everything else put together, because it’s the basis of all life on Earth. Your arguments about the government are thus minor details here. ]]]
I HAVE A GREAT IDEA!
Kill everyone in Southern California, South Chicago, Long Island, and Atlanta.
Blow it all up. Rebuild.
Fire the farmers and ranchers. Offer them free beach front mansions in the rebuilt areas as listed.
The only downside: The Democratic Party won’t exist anymore.
@Jeff D
The science on this has changed. New research shows that grazing causes rejuvenation of foliage. When they reduced grazing out of fear that the foliage would be decimated, it invariably caused desertification. If interested you can watch this 20 min Ted talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
But I understand how you feel :)
@Phil Ferro
I’m not sure the Bundy’s or anybody else has a “personal freedom” to flout the law. Use of public lands has restrictions. You can’t whatever you want, whenever you want. You can’t graze however much you want, whenever you want. I thought you right-wingers are always talking about the eminence of laws, and how immigrants are violating them. Why don’t you try to follow the law, instead of throwing a “personal freedom” tantrum.
And while I may not agree with the FBI’s tactics here, they do have the job of enforcing the law. The Bundys caused this situation to come to a head, not the FBI.
“You can’t whatever you want, whenever you want” should read “You can’t HUNT whatever you want, whenever you want”
[[[ And while I may not agree with the FBI’s tactics here, they do have the job of enforcing the law. The Bundys caused this situation to come to a head, not the FBI. ]]]
Wrong. Bundy Ranch area is legally “open range.”
The feds like to rustle cows. It’s legal to kill rustlers.
“The science on this has changed. New research shows that grazing causes rejuvenation of foliage. When they reduced grazing out of fear that the foliage would be decimated, it invariably caused desertification.”
The character of the fauna in the American West has been changed by cattle ranching forever. cattle have destroyed forever the vegetation that characterized the desert at the time of the buffalo, and when when they talk of “desertification”, this guy from the African continent has no clue what came before, and what balance existed before cattle destroyed the balance of the landscape by selective grazing and overgrazing. So no, if the “science” has “changed”, that does not mean it is “valid” and that cattle ranching is “sustainable”. It’s happening, and damage control is all that is possible.
It might very well be that because of the immense harms caused by the grazing industry, we’ve lost the western ecosystems forever as you claim. I have no opinion on this except to say that your statement is extremely depressing if true. But I don’t see any way that allowing these huge non-native monsters to graze extremely fragile ecosystems like the western U.S. could be ecologically positive, even in the “new” west. These ecosystems didn’t evolve with anything like cattle.
And don’t get hoodwinked about bison; their numbers in the west were minuscule. They are not mountain animals, they lived in the great plains between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains, mainly west of the Mississippi River. The so-called “herds” of bison west of the Rockies consisted of 3-7 animals.
The science has not changed. You’re just repeating grazing/cattle industry propaganda. The science has been the same for a long time: putting huge non-native ungulates like cows in the arid ecosystems of the west and not forcing them to immediately move away from waterways like streams and creeks after drinking is extremely ecologically destructive for multiple reasons. Instead of YouTube, which is not a reliable or authoritative source for anything, contact unbiased people who know what they’re talking about, like the Center for Biological Diversity, which has scientists who work on these issues. That’s what I did when I started getting these false claims just to make sure that the science had not changed, which I was assured that it had not.
You’ve spewed BS that’s the exact opposite of the truth. CATTLE GRAZING (and to a lesser extent, domestic sheep grazing) has caused desertification of the west, not the other way around. In the natural western deserts there were very few ungulates, perhaps a few bighorn sheep. In the semi-arid areas there were more, like deer and elk. But none of these were like cattle.
If you want more information on this, read Sacred Cows at the Public Trough and/or Welfare Ranching. Both excellent books on the subject, and the science has NOT changed, despite grazing industry lies to the contrary.
@AtheistInChief-it’s my understanding the Bundy’s have been grazing cattle on that land before it became under control of the Feds back in the 1800’s. The Feds and the Bundy’s negotiated a settlement which became the law. It’s my belief the Feds violated the negotiated settlement/law not the Bundy’s. You should be telling the Feds to follow the law because this is one of thousands of unlawful acts they get away with. Don’t forget, Americans are legally obligated to do whatever it takes to our government to stop its unlawful conduct.
“As far as Cliven was concerned, the land was public and no one was using it anyway.” Except for the desert tortoise, of course.
This was very much the cowboy attitude that Settled the West–there was a bunch of land and no one was using it anyway. Except for Native Americans, that is.
Time the Bundys evolved.
Interesting well written article, brings up a number of questions:
1. Why did FBI decide to impersonate the media? What are the future repercussions – will those who perceivably break law feel safe talking to the media?
2. The information for their investigation was already widely available – why bother creating a fake production crew.
3. Instead of using bureau undercover agents, could of the FBI secretly paid a production company to crate such a documentary unwittingly. Seems like they would of been better off paying a productions company as either an anonymous donor, fake right-wing organization to film such a film.
Overall this appears to be a big F-UP on the part of beru. They did not get any useful information that could not have been attained through conventional sources. They may damaged real media ability to conduct investigative journalism which could later be used as evidence.
Wow. You’ve lost all credibility with me putting the Bundys in the same category as the DAPL protestors. Clearly you don’t have the full story or understand the west and public land issues. Say what you want about the FBI but the Arizona strip (north of Grand Canyon between Page, UT and Mesquite, NV….where the Bundys live) has been lawless for decades and is overrun by FLDS and extreme mormon right who live to ‘Bleed the Beast’ through welfare fraud, abuse of foster care programs among many other things…Bundys included. Dig deeper next time in your effort to ‘expose’ the FBI. There are many good, well researched stories about the situation. This does not appear to be one of them.
Can’t say I know much about the Mormon views. I definitely think the Welfare State is abused by any number of people and it’s sickening. Get rid of it is my personal view.
The BLM seems to overstep out that way but I am by no means thinking a tourtise is more important than cattle for feed.
Our country already can’t sustain the number of people that live here from a numerical stand point.
I believe if you are using the land by the government then you should pay, however in my area they have started the process of “eminent domain” along the rivers and water ways to control the access to water supplies.
So for that I say No Way.
Here here
this just indicates the extent to which corruption is rampant and becoming pervasive throughout our institutions… Need to take back democracy by stopping the bribery- stand outside the corporate duopoly — not in it. The Democratic party is a conduit for corporate interests: our 1 minute video- https://youtu.be/xAXoDBH4BIQ …. and this 2 minute video: Listen Up, Liberal – https://youtu.be/wplxMsuYAVE on how the MainStreamMedia colludes with Duopoly and corporate parties to undermine a People’s movement. Don’t think for a second you will have a People’s Party or a Justice Party in a hollowed out CORPORATE party…. need a party that doesnt accept Corporate money or corrupt leadership- GREEN
Well said. Well said.
The leftist use everything but if normal people try and stand up they will always try and knock you down.
And the color green makes all of the politicians corrupt.
While the standoff at either location had debatable intentions one thing I think still remains.
The federal government will settle at nothing less than getting the end game. Up to and including swaying how they go about it.
I know a lot of Feds and they are good people, but as a whole they do what they are told just like the rest of the sheep in our country.
I watched the video of Finicum being shot a bunch and it was clear he never reached for his gun. He was hit before he ever “appeared” to reach as you can see by his hand position.
Witnesses in the car aid the truck was basically “Swiss cheese” but the Feds reported minimal shots. Then at the end of the video you see an agent coming out from the woods. While I understand the truck had ran it was clear the Feds had no intention of letting them get away.
I don’t disagree with all of the tactics the LEs did I have my skepticism.
A healthy dose of skepticism is good to have. And like the Dems and the lord Obama said the gun toteing, bible fearing folks will always stand up.
But that said unless the sheep wake up and become sheepdogs our country is close to lost to the NWO.
I see similarities in this story, and Standing Rock and Flint Michigan. You can quibble over the fact that this article is about ‘public’ lands, but we all know that the gov’t is in the service of private industry, as many of my favorite commentator’s have pointed out below.
I want to live in an America where all of these protest groups show up to all event’s where the Gov’t wages a campaign of persecution ( 1st: financial, 2nd:legal, and then usually,threat to life). Comey’s firing is seeming like a better idea every minute.
Ranching IS a private industry, and a very environmentally destructive one in the west. Get a clue. There is no comparison between this situation and that in Standing Rock or that in Flint; all totally different.
Another very good reason for firing James Comey.
Now can Intercept please fire the Mackey and the Packey blokes?
an immodest proposal:
As the FBI clearly wishes above all to be a theatrical troupe (see every major FBI op that has gotten attention in recent years, all involving somebody pretending to be something they are not), and the NEA actually funds theater, why can’t we switch them on the budget? The NEA could get the kind of funding it hasn’t had in years, reinvigorate arts education in this country.
Meanwhile, it would be good for the FBI’s “art” to have to struggle a bit for awhile, you know, not rely so much on special effects, but rely on that kind of by-the-bootstraps approach that I hear is so good for the character.
I was thinking along the lines of a “rotten tomatoes ” type award..
They oughta make an updated movie version of American Hustle
With all the high-/heavy-handed and well-documented abuses of power perpetrated on people by police in the cities, it’s got to be even worse out in the empty quarters- where said pussies know no one is watching them.
I may not like some of what I hear about Mr. Bundy or his sons: But if I were on jury I’d let him off.
Man: “Why does it take six of you to write a ticket for speeding? Surely you realize that having so many of you show up posturing for something trivial like a speeding citation undermines your credibility with the public and makes you come off as cowards.”
Cop: “It’s our training.”
Yeah then quit being trained by pussies.
Totally rivoting story. Well done!
That is NOT the Mojave Desert. FFS do some damn fact checking.
While it’s true that the FBI is under investigation for misconduct related to the shooting of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, the issue there is that the FBI fired 2 shots at Finicum’s car as he was approaching the blockade and – for unknown reasons – initially faioed to report them. The FBI was not involved in the shooting that resulted in his death.
The fatal shots were fired by an officer with Oregon State Police after Finicum repeatedly reached towards a pocket where he had a gun despite being told to keep his hands raised. The circumstances of the OSP’s role in the shooting is not under investigation.
to hell with all of that. I want to know what happened to the Hammonds. Why it is OK to shoot old cowboys down with a mob ambush, and shoot into a car of unarmed women, men, and young people.
The Hammonds were sentenced by one judge with a mild sentence on their first trial for unlawful burning. The the U.S. JD under Holder decided that they must be tried again under “domestic terrorism”. This is defacto double jeopardy if there ever was such a thing. And this time they get hammered by a “minimum sentence” prescribed by the new offence definition. Tyranny by any other name.
I suggest you watch American Standoff now viewable on “Audience Channel”. Near the end, iPhone vid footage inside Loviy’s truck graphically shows the man minutes before his death,
Rule #1 Do not fuck with cops pointing guns at you!!!
The man stopped, quibbled, hemmed and hawed..and disobeyed authority..made a fatal decision to run a road block.
His passengers were under duress. He was in charge. He was the driver. He was the star in his own mind.
Ammon and Lavoy being Mormon, followed the credo of respecting , showing reverence to your elders , hence Lavoy’s media exposure..
These people read W. Cleon Skousen’s interpretation of the constitution !
Willard Cleon Skousen was an American conservative author and faith-based political theorist. A notable anti-communist and supporter of the John Birch Society.
In 1970, the LDS Church was under considerable attack for its refusal to ordain blacks into its priesthood. In response, Skousen penned an article entitled “The Communist Attack on the Mormons,” in which he accused critics of “distorting the religious tenet of the Church regarding the Negro and blowing it up to ridiculous proportions” and of serving as Communist dupes.
While Skousen was alive, many of his ideas were met with fierce criticism, while his pronouncements made him “a pariah among most conservative activists”. In one instance, the constitutional scholar Jack Rakove, of Stanford University, inspected Skousen’s books and seminars and pronounced them “a joke that no self-respecting scholar would think is worth a warm pitcher of spit.” A 1971 review in the Mormon studies journal Dialogue described Skousen as “inventing fantastic ideas and making inferences that go far beyond the bounds of honest commentary,” and also of promoting concepts that were “perilously close” to Nazism.
Wow. You actually found “victims” soliciting less sympathy than the feds using under-handed tactics against them. Point…made! Nailed it!
Some hero! This guy was ripping us all off with his free grazing land. Running cattle in a desert is not good for anything except making money by selling the meat. Phony!
It wasn’t free grazing land. He paid the state and the U.S. for years. He objected to the BLM raising the price to levels which drove over 50 of his neighbors away. He was the only hold-out.
Ahh..Life’s a Bitch ain’t it tho?
Ammon Bundy, spokesperson for the Malheur action, got a $530,000 Small Business Administration loan in 2010, costing taxpayers more than $22,000. And we don’t know if he’s even paid the loan back.
The Bundys graze cattle on federal land, a privilege for which the government charges a dirt-cheap price. Federal grazing fees were just $1.35 for a cow and calf per month in 2012, while the going rate on private land was about $20 — that’s a 93 percent discount for ranchers using federal land, as FiveThirtyEight points out. (And even that wasn’t good enough for the Bundys; family patriarch Cliven Bundy has grazed his cattle on federal land without a permit since 1993, and refused to pay more than $1 million in fines and fees, which led to his infamous standoff last year.)
Half of the grazing fees that ranchers pay the federal government come right back to benefit the ranchers. As U.S. News reported last year, “50 percent of grazing fees collected by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service (or $10 million, whichever is greater) go to a range betterment fund in the Treasury. According to the bureau, these so-called ‘Range Improvement Funds’ are used ‘solely for labor, materials, and final survey and design of projects,’ presumably benefiting ranchers.”
Ranchers can cash in on a federal drought disaster relief program. In a particularly ironic case last year, some Nevada ranchers illegally grazed their cattle on public land that been closed to protect it during the ongoing Western drought, denying that the drought existed at all. But it turns out that two of the families leading that rebellion had received $2.2 million in federal drought relief funds the previous year.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management routinely removes wild horses from public lands to make way for cattle. In 2015, according to the BLM, this program cost the American public $75 million.
He’d been refusing to pay the fees for over 20 years, resulting in him owing over a million dollers in back fees, despite multiple court orders barring him from using public land – orders he simply ignored. Additionally, given that the cost of land management would naturally increase over time, its not surprising that fees would increase as well. The fees charged by the government, however, are a small fraction of what leasing grazing land would cost from a private entity, which can cost up to 10 times as much.
I think Jon’s point is that the Bundy family was using it for free. They weren’t paying the fees any more.
he stopped paying, and he never thought he should pay in the first place.
http://www.factandmyth.com/conspiracy-theory/cliven-bundys-cattle-and-the-federal-land-grab
take a look at what a deal the rate per cow is, and put the blame where it belongs–on large corporate producers freezing out the smaller operations:
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/2012/07/18/how-corporate-control-squeezes-out-small-farms
Well, the point of the article is not whether Bundy is a hero or not, it’s about whether the actions of the Government discussed in the piece, were warranted. That’s what Glen does too. It’s not about what the little guy did, but it’s about what the government, republican or democrat, did to the little guy.
Ryan Deveraux’s pieces are among the best at The Intercept. They’re well written, and from my experience, he goes to the places he writes about.
Absolutely!
A story like this is going to create even more paranoia among conservative nationalists as they already harbor the perception that elements within various agencies of the Federal government are secretly conspiring to undermine the original intent of the US constitution with the aim of surrendering US sovereignty to global governing bodies. Even if no prosecutions of Bundy Et al. arise from this undercover investigation, the ability of like minded groups will be far more reluctant to openly espouse their views to, or through, the “media.”It is in this regard that it can be said that the FBI’s impersonation of reporters has had an intentional chilling effect that might very well be interpreted as a willful abridgement of first amendment rights. The very thought that FBI agents are falsely assuring suspects that their confidential communications are constitutionally protected will deeply inhibit all dissenting opinion that accompanies civil disobedience.
the f…b…i…
Are they good or what?
i would not be at all surprised if they had a website that enticed anti-gov persons to post confessions of their animosity to profile them. This is just really good police work.
SO HOW THE HELL DID THEY MISS WALLSTREET?
Perhaps it is because from 1913, the f…b…i… being the enforcement arm of the privately held federal reserve bank and their wallstreet banking subsidiaries, they were just protecting their owners.
Correcto-Mundo
1913; Federal Reserve Bank, IRS and FBI(BOI then) all created in the same year
Great points. Double standards and lying really undermines the FBI’s investigations.
don’t call them exterimists, it’s just a buzz word it means nothing
No mention of Sen. Harry Reid’s connection to a Chinese company that needed the grazing rangeland for easement parcels for a planned solar energy farm.
Harry Reid’s Chinese Company has needed those lands for 30 years??? you weird shit believing nutjob? you right wing fanatics are even worse than journalism impersonators.
Try harder.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/apr/24/blog-posting/did-sen-harry-reid-drive-standoff-bundy-ranch-pers/
well, sheeit! if i’d’a knowed that . . .
/runs to get rifle/
git in the truck!
“Sen. Harry Reid’s connection to a Chinese company” … this is figgin lie. Quit spreading disinformation.
Cattle do not benefit the environment. They destroy it with sheer numbers. All the other wild animals, including predators and wild horses, are being eradicated for the cattle to graze on the land. Desert tortoises can eat the dung of wild animals, not cattle.
The point of the article is not that the Bundys are “right.”
That’s not what the University of Arizona says.
The FBI’s problem is that impersonating someone isn’t easy. They have to choose a trade which requires no special skills or training. That leaves journalists and FBI agents. There is no point for an FBI agent to impersonate an FBI agent, so that narrows it down. I don’t see any particular problem with the FBI impersonating journalists, although since many journalists are on the CIA payroll, perhaps it’s a jurisdictional issue. But these agencies can take care of their own turf wars and I don’t see why anyone else should worry about it.
That’s a good one even for you. ;)
His stuff is always great. This one, like most of his pieces, made me physically move with a chuckle when I read it.
Fucking genius is Benito.
The moral of the story: if you’re a god-fearing, gun loving, anti-government patriot who has been requested to partake in a documentary by mysterious individuals, do some better due diligence.
I think you need to better articulate the questions being raised. You provide the 2007 Associated Press incident, and while similar, there is a huge distinction: in that case, the FBI used the name and credibility of an established news organization to pull off their deceit. This absolutely harms the credibility of the AP. If the government can hijack their name, how do we know they won’t or haven’t done it again? If people think the FBI can use news organizations’ good names at will without recourse, it ultimately erodes trust in the organizations. So if the FBI had run this operation under the aegis of First Look Media or HBO Films, that would be outrageous.
But what happened in this case is that the FBI conjured up a phony film production company, apparently in the spirit of Argo. All of the sudden, the potential harm is not quite as clear. One can claim, as the defense surely will, that this has a chilling effect on 1st amendment rights, but who was harmed – the broader documentary film community? The already existing public perception that the media is untrustworthy? creating more conspiracy theorists? All plausible but but difficult to quantify. To condemn this type of method, I think you have to be better able to convey the potential consequences and their chilling effect.
With that said, this article does a good job of casting doubt on the efficacy of such an operation. I’m also not convinced that this effort was necessary. Why would these “interviewees” incriminate themselves on a documentary and if so, could they not just claim they were embellishing their story for dramatic effect?
By the way, ‘news’ organizations The New York Times and the Washington Post never spilled an ounce of ink or filled a single pixel on the escalating Cliven Bundy 10th Amendment episode in 2014 until a week after the BLM retreated.
NYT waited 6 days after that to report on it for the very first time in its history (with an emotional OpEd by Timothy Egan). WaPo waited until it saw NYT write, so it didn’t file a word on it until the day after NYT (a full week after the BLM de-escalated).
Why is establishment leftist corporate news so afraid of the Bill of Rights to tell you anything?
I think it is important to understand that “grazing rights” don’t exist on our public lands. There are grazing privileges, most often granted to millionaires like Cliven Bundy who are charged $1.87 to feed a cow and a calf for a month.
“millionaires like Cliven Bundy”
Did you read the article, or go straight to the comments section to regurgitate your left wing, big government propaganda?
“Cliven and his family aren’t wealthy ranchers, and their land has only offered a subsistence lifestyle at best. ”
How many millionaires do you know who live a “subsistence lifestyle” by working on a cattle ranch?
I think it’s important to understand that the federal government makes up the rules as it goes along & federal bureaucrats make it a hobby to harass small business people. That resentment doesn’t come from nowhere.
maybe the poster didn’t believe the assertion in the article. i didn’t see a source for it.
I don’t like the Bundy’s at all, but impersonating journalists should not be one of the tools in the law enforcement toolbox. Same thing with impersonating anyone, really. They do more harm than good with lies like that, because now every journalist (or aid worker, or doctor, etc.) will be regarded with suspicion.
Great, on point comment.
It was good to see american’s standing up for each other & facing off against a totalitarian regime.
Christ! These days you don’t know who to believe. I trust The Intercept but….
All information is truly suspect these days. You can’t trust any source. That’s not a good thing.
Thank you for reporting this story. I’d like to hear more about the legal aspects of the government posing as journalists.
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