Good news for patriots across the United States! Front-page story of our most recent American Free Press. Not yet a subscriber? Click here for print subscription options or click here for digital options.
By Mark Anderson
President Donald Trump on July 10 signed presidential pardons for 76-year-old Dwight Hammond and his son Steven, 49—the embattled Oregon ranchers who suffered gross injustices after they were forced to serve consecutive prison terms despite being found innocent by a jury of the most serious charges. Their jailing eventually spurred the respected Bundy ranching family to protest the men’s plight at the Malheur nature preserve.
“The evidence at trial regarding the Hammonds’ responsibility for the fire was conflicting, and the jury acquitted them on most of the charges,” a White House statement said. “Justice is overdue for Dwight and Steven Hammond, both of whom are entirely deserving of these Grants of Executive Clemency.”
The Hammonds, sentenced to five years in 2012 for that conviction, became the focal point of ranchers and others who oppose the federal government’s notoriously wasteful and costly mismanagement of massive tracts of Western lands to which it claims “ownership.” While mainstream media have simplistically claimed “they had set a series of fires on their ranch that spread to federal land,” in reality, the Hammonds started a “backburn” on their grazing land in Harney County, Ore. The controlled burn was lit, without malicious intent, to mitigate the impact of a totally separate fire on adjacent federal land that was headed their way.
In response to the Hammonds’ jailing, protesters, including the sons of famed Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County in early 2016. The mainstream media were quick to call it an “armed standoff.” However, the only use of firearms came when one of the occupiers, soft-spoken Robert LaVoy Finicum, died with his hands in the air in a hail of gunfire from state police and federal agents when he exited the driver’s seat of his vehicle at a police roadblock, while en route to a diplomatic meeting with area law enforcement.
Cliven Bundy, who became a focal point on the long, hard road he and scores of other ranchers have had to travel to expose and resist the overreach of the federal “landlord,” reacted to the news of the Hammonds’ clemency, telling AFP: “This is a great day for America, a great day for the ranchers in Oregon, and a great day for the Bundy family.”
Bundy explained: “The Bundy family didn’t have any vested interest in the Hammonds, except that they were ranching neighbors. My son Ammon called on local, county, state, and federal officials [about the Hammond’s plight]. Not one would respond
to his call. President Trump is the only man in these governments who responded to Ammon’s call and found the federal government’s criminal justice system was unjust.”
He continued: “The Hammonds sacrificed their ranch and money to attorneys and paid the federal government thousands and thousands of dollars, and LaVoy Finicum lost his life. The federal government cost my son Ammon $15 million. He had two thriving businesses; the federal government stepped in and told the people he was doing business with to stop doing business with Ammon. They weren’t just happy to put Ammon in jail and to murder LaVoy. They wanted to ruin people’s lives.”
Cliven summarized, “Shame on you, America, for allowing this to happen, and thank you, President Trump, for trying to make things straight.”
Mark Anderson is AFP’s roving editor.
This poem was written for LaVoy Finicum, the day he was murdered.
ONE COWBOY
One cowboy stood today, and showed me life’s freedom in his eyes:
the glint of a living world shone forth from his belief.
No matter what the world says now-so glaringly in error:
time will show LaVoy stood true.
A peaceful man full of honour
Quiet dignity fortified with strength of belief
A principle that was embued in this world
when it was created,
lived in LaVoy
and we saw it in his eyes.
Welcome Home, LaVoy, Well Done Native Son
You stood tall, straight and true
The Honour of the Ages lived in you
And the light of God shone forth from your gaze
Today you are in an unfenced pasture,
Home on the Range
with the Master Shepherd,
and the angels sing.
The Democrats’ Justice Department loathed normal, conservative
successful Americans, especially white ones, and went out of their way to destroy them.
Good for president Trump! He put those people in their places by pardoning these people for a grave injustice that was done to them!!! More power to President DJT!
There were NO arson experts called to testify at this farce of a trial against the Hammond’s.
The bias of Judge Ann Aiken, her son Jake Klonoski, and Amanda Marshall are in the same category as Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Page, Brennan and Mueller.
Steve Hammond had worked for years on the Steen Mountain conservation plan along with Oregon’s Representative Greg Walden.
Judge Aiken ruled against Hammond in that issue.
Steve’s grandson had done something he should not have done, and made a
permanent marking in his own skin recording that event. Afraid of criminal prosecution for his grandson, Dusty was forced to get rid of the permanent marking.
Social Services attorney, Amanda Marshall, and Judge Ann Aiken, who oversees Social Services, ruled against Dwight in that issue.
Oregon went through 3 Attorney Generals in 18 months: Immergut, Holton,
and Robinson.
Amanda Marshall was elevated from a sub-par attorney in Social Services
to become Oregon’s Attorney General to prosecute the Hammond’s under
terrorism statutes.
She went to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where Judge Ann Aiken’s son, Jake Klonoski, works.
Although only 1% of all the appeals ever filed are granted, miraculously
(sarc), Amanda Marshall was given the appeal to re-sentence the Hammond’s under Terrorism statutes.
Dept. of Interior Rules state NO RANCHER shall be prosecuted for (arson), any fire started….
WHY? Because starting backfires are an accepted, and common practice in ranching.
Bureau of Land Management Director Rhonda Kharges would have received an interdepartmental memo referring to alqueda’s summer 2010 magazine calling on all its followers to set fire to the lands of the kuffar (infidels).
As would have the Forestry Service.
From all the comments published in Oregon Live’s newspaper articles regarding Malheur’s occupation, that scornfully derided the Hammond’s and occupiers as “al-queda’s” : it is quite obvious many of the fire
fighters read this memo, as did BLM manager and Harney County Commissioner Steve Grasty, who did everything he could to escalate the
situation to Kate Brown.
** Copies of Steve Grasty’s text messages to Governor Kate Brown are uploaded on scribd.com
The viciousness of the attacks against the Hammond’s by these cold, calculating, and ruthless people are in the same category as Gloria Navarro’s stonewalling of the Bundy’s defense team for two years in Nevada.
But then, Navarro was personally handpicked by Harry Reid, to sit
on that bench. Navarro had worked for Harry Reid in Clark County, defending “the government” from civil suits.
Harry Reid’s four out of five sons are attorneys working for mining companies.
Chad Kharges, the director of Malheur Refuge, is Rhonda Kharges husband, and had made it known for years, along with Steve Grasty, Harney County Commissioner, that he wanted all Malheur Refuge under his control.
The hunting guide who ‘testified’ at the farce of a trial, is the
ONLY PERSON who gets a permit from the Bureau of Land Management
to have his little hunting expeditions.
Dusty Hammond was manipulated, coerced and victimized by the social service dept. to falsely testify against his own father and grandfather, who had once forced him to remove evidence from his body that could have put Dusty in jail.
That is why the original judge refused to sentence the Hammond’s
under “terrorism” statutes: because the original judge knew the full story, and the thoughts and intent of the Hammonds’ to keep their grandson out of trouble.
The state of Oregon put forth NO effort, time, monies, or expenditures in putting out these small brush backfires the Hammond’s truthfully admitted to starting.
WHY the $400,000 fine???? The state of Oregon is insured with Lloyd’s of London against wildfires.
Under centuries of ranching, and Dept of Interior Rules: IT IS NO CRIME for ranchers to start backfires.
There are videos that show how close BLM/Forest Service were to the Hammond’s ranch when the BLM/Forest Service SET FIRE to grasslands.
Hammond’s home is clearly visible, and three BLM/Forest Service workers are clearly seen with blow torches setting fire to scrub.
Papagliani (Amanda Marshall’s assistant District Attorney), threatened the Hammonds’ with a harder jail location and earlier reporting time if they asked for any help, or accepted the support of the occupiers. *witness notarized statement uploaded to scribd.com)
For all you ‘wildlife enthusiasts’, nature lovers, and environmental activists: you are being played like strings on a fiddle.
Major foreign countries are (and have been for a decade), actively seeking large plots of land (at least 50 sq. miles), that they can buy to raise food for their own people in their own nations.
These nations are also competing WORLD WIDE to acquire and hold natural resources: i.e., mining corporations (elements such as uranium, etc.); and it does not matter what nation they take it from.
For all you doubters, look up Uranium One’s Screenshot to Lez Zaitz of Oregon Live, thanking him for his favorable coverage of them, and offering to pay for his and Oregon Live’s expenses.
For those of you who kept track, Zaitz was relentless in his yellow journalism: at all times favoring Grasty, Kharges, the Paiutes,
Kieran Suckling, State Police and FBI, while constantly denigrating the Hammond’s and occupiers through omission of facts, and inflaming emotional responses.
There is a video out that shows it was Kieran Suckling’s Center for Biological Diversity that left their place trashed.
Meanwhile, there are several videos showing the Occupiers cleaning out the rat feces and garbage that Malheur Director Chad Kharges had let accumulate at the refuge.
Malheur employees had been told NOT to report for work after Christmas break, as were Bureau of Land Management employees.
13 attorneys filed a complaint against Judge Ann Aiken for judicial misconduct on another issue. So this is not just about the Hammond’s,
but Ann Aiken is an extremely short-sighted and biased individual that has no business setting on a judicial bench.
The only terrorism that took place in Harney County, Oregon was that of Aiken, Marshall, Grasty, and the Kharges in falsifying testimony against the Hammonds, judicial misconduct, and prejudicial bias of the prosecution.
13 attorneys filed a complaint against Judge Ann Aiken for judicial misconduct on another issue. So this is not just about the Hammond’s,
but Ann Aiken is an extremely short-sighted and biased individual that has no business setting on a judicial bench.