Trump pardons ranchers in case that inspired 2016 occupation of national wildlife refuge in Oregon
Source: Chicago Tribune
President Donald Trump has pardoned two ranchers whose case sparked the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon.
Dwight and Steven Hammond were convicted in 2012 of intentionally and maliciously setting fires on public lands. The arson crime carried a minimum prison sentence of five years, but a sympathetic federal judge, on his last day before retirement, decided the penalty was too stiff and gave the father and son much lighter prison terms.
Prosecutors won an appeal and the Hammonds were resentenced in October 2015 to serve the mandatory minimum.
The decision sparked a protest from Ammon Bundy and dozens of others, who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near the Hammond ranch in southeastern Oregon from Jan. 2 to Feb. 11, 2016, complaining the Hammonds were victims of federal overreach.
Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-trump-pardon-dwight-steven-hammond-20180710-story.html
Va Lefty
(6,252 posts)The "dog whistle" is deafening
Botany
(70,442 posts)Come on mouth breathers get your AR 15 and stand up against the deep state's
"war on Trump."
BTW my late granddad was a sheep rancher / fruit grower in Oregon for years and those
"Bundy Boys" cutting barbed wire fences so other people's cattle could go onto the wildlife
refuge's lands really pissed me off.
dalton99a
(81,386 posts)jmowreader
(50,528 posts)These people are not patriots.
catrose
(5,059 posts)and they were on their own land
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,938 posts)left-of-center2012
(34,195 posts)elmac
(4,642 posts)and this is a signal to all right-wing terrorist's, the president's got your back.
geardaddy
(24,926 posts)MountCleaners
(1,148 posts)They want an idiot manchild who will do whatever they want him to do, and they got exactly that.
They want a government of themselves and themselves alone, and they're getting exactly that.
Response to Botany (Original post)
Post removed
elmac
(4,642 posts)Vinca
(50,236 posts)Cognitive_Resonance
(1,546 posts)rockfordfile
(8,695 posts)mac56
(17,564 posts)DBoon
(22,338 posts)If he is impeached or voted out of office
He is encouraging an armed militia to intervene on his behalf as payback and signaling his support for illegal armed insurrection against lawful government functions.
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,494 posts)SunSeeker
(51,504 posts)And that it's OK to use public lands to graze your cattle at taxpayer expense and destroy public property, if you're white and Republican.
Everyone else? Get in a cage!
Fucking sickening.
keithbvadu2
(36,640 posts)Conservative militia requests/encourages killing of police.
Starts about 10:40 on the timeline
One of our Christian, patriot, conservative militia heroes encouraging supporters to come shoot the police when they conquered and captured an unmanned Federal nature preserve in Oregon.
Where were our conservatives to call this out as wrong?
.
MBS
(9,688 posts)A little more history and background to get you even more angry.
This is a completely unjustified, unethical, irresponsible, and - yes - deplorable action.
He and his cronies seem determined to destroy our entire country: not only our democracy and our people, but also our natural heritage.
http://radio.wosu.org/post/president-trump-pardons-ranchers-dwight-and-steven-hammond-over-arson#stream/0
Audio and text at the link.
An excerpt of the text:
"The seeds of the current situation were sown in 2001 and 2006. In both those years, the U.S. government said the Hammonds set fires that spread onto land managed by the [Bureau of Land Management]. The 2001 blaze burned 139 acres of public land, according to court documents; the 2006 fire for which only Steven was convicted burned additional acre of public land."
Here's how the Justice Department described Steven Hammond's actions after he was resentenced in 2015:
"Witnesses at trial, including a relative of the Hammonds, testified the arson occurred shortly after Steven Hammond and his hunting party illegally slaughtered several deer on BLM property. Jurors were told that Steven Hammond handed out 'Strike Anywhere' matches with instructions that they be lit and dropped on the ground because they were going to 'light up the whole country on fire.' One witness testified that he barely escaped the eight to ten foot high flames caused by the arson."
These despicable criminals should not be allowed to roam free in society.
Judi Lynn
(160,433 posts)Very complete picture of these lunatics from the Daily Beast:
- click for image of grandchild/nephew Dusty Hammond -
https://img.thedailybeast.com/image/upload/c_crop,d_placeholder_euli9k,h_1439,w_2560,x_0,y_0/dpr_2.0/c_limit,w_740/fl_lossy,q_auto/v1492120399/articles/2016/01/05/oregon-rancher-heroes-accused-of-child-abuse/160104-daly-hammond-tease_ipitek
Oregon Rancher Heroes Accused of Child Abuse
Steven and Dwight Hammond, the inspiration for the militia occupying an Oregon federal building, allegedly took sandpaper to their nephew's chest.
MICHAEL DALY
01.05.16 12:29 AM ET
A photo of a teenage boy with two bizarre wounds on his chest suggests that child abuser might be a better description than hero for the two ranchers in whose name so-called militia members have taken over a federal building in Oregon.
Raising kids is like raising cows or dogs, one of the ranchers is quoted as saying in a police report to which the photo is attached.
The photo is of Dusty Hammond, nephew of rancher Steve Hammond and grandson of rancher Dwight Hammond.
Dusty was 16 on that March morning in 2004, when Deputy Sheriff Brian Needham of the Harney County Sheriffs Office responded with a human services representative to Crane High School in the Oregon town of the same name. Needham spoke to Dusty about a possible assault involving a student.
Dusty told me that about four to five weeks ago he had scratched some initials into his shoulder/chest area with a paper clip, Needhams subsequent report reads.
More:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/oregon-rancher-heroes-accused-of-child-abuse
MountCleaners
(1,148 posts)You have to wonder if a lot of people in Trump's base voted for him because they have violent tendencies.
They hate the government because they're crooks!
Rabrrrrrr
(58,347 posts)Gonna be a fun day for me!
Botany
(70,442 posts)marble falls
(56,996 posts)flibbitygiblets
(7,220 posts)Maybe he was just talking about the TV show.
riversedge
(70,047 posts)walla--trumpy pardons them.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-pardons-oregon-men-whose-case-sparked-wildlife-refuge-takeover/ar-AAzR7Rb?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=spartanntp
Trump Pardons Oregon Men Whose Case Sparked Wildlife Refuge Takeover
By EILEEN SULLIVAN and JULIE TURKEWITZ
1 hr ago
WASHINGTON President Trump on Tuesday pardoned a pair of Oregon cattle ranchers who had been serving sentences for arson on federal land sentences that set off the armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in 2016.
Dwight L. Hammond, now 76, and his son, Steven D. Hammond, 49, became a cause célèbre that inspired an antigovernment groups battle with the federal government over its control of rural land in Oregon. The occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge resulted in the death of a rancher from Arizona.
The Hammonds have a long history of conflict with the federal government, but many felt their sentences for the 2001 and 2006 fires were unfair.
The Hammonds are multigeneration cattle ranchers in Oregon imprisoned in connection with a fire that leaked onto a small portion of neighboring public grazing land, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. The evidence at trial regarding the Hammonds responsibility for the fire was conflicting, and the jury acquitted them on most of the charges.
The pardons will shave some time off the Hammonds five-year sentences Dwight Hammond has served three years and Steven Hammond has served four. But the pardons suggest the Trump administrations support of ranchers in the battle over federal lands and also undo an Obama administration appeal to impose longer sentences for the Hammonds...................................................
Capperdan
(492 posts)Are there any adults in the Pentagon who will put him in a cage now?
packman
(16,296 posts)He would have had some decision to make regarding Benedict Arnold
rockfordfile
(8,695 posts)When you see the terrible forest fires think of trump that un-American pos. He let two scumbags that do things like starting fires that can cause damage to property get out of jail.
turbinetree
(24,683 posts)Fuck no............................
Because the human beings at standing rock were not trying to over throw the government..................they were trying to have clean drinking water, clean food, and air, and protect scared burial grounds................
Eugene
(61,805 posts)He's certainly going that way.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)joshcryer
(62,265 posts)Something worse.