The acquittal of Ammon Bundy and 6 others in the Oregon Refugee Occupation trail came as a surprising verdict last week. On today’s Federalist Radio Hour, we talk about the case, the prosecutors, the trial, and what it means for federal land management.
Ben Domenech interviews Karina Brown, Oregon-based reporter for Courthouse News; Mike Arnold, Oregon attorney, and Ammon Bundy’s original lawyer; and Lisa Ludwig, defense lawyer and standby counsel for Ryan Bundy.
“We were very vocal in the media trying to establish the narrative of the political protestors, rather than the previous media narrative being ‘armed militants.'” Arnold said. “The government failed to charge these people with the one crime they were expecting to be charged with, and that was criminal trespass. That was because the government overreached and they lost.”
Ludwig said the prosecutors’ attempt to use guns as a scare tactic in the courtroom did not phase the jury. “Running a prosecution based on scary firearms in front of a jury that wasn’t going to buy that was probably an error,” she said.
Listen here: