Trump Should Order Sessions to Drop Bundy Prosecution

Bob Barr

  

...Trump should immediately direct Attorney General Jeff Sessions to halt the lengthy and unfair prosecution of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. The nearly four-year old prosecution of Bundy, his sons, and a number of their many supporters, has been more than a prosecution. It has been a crusade; begun under former Attorney General Eric Holder in 2014, continued all this past year by an interim career prosecutor in Las Vegas, and abetted by a federal judge appointed by Obama and whose animus toward Bundy is palpable.

...The latest chapter in the government’s crusade against Bundy ended just last week in a mistrial, following a disclosure that the government deliberately had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence from the defense lawyers. The startling evidence surfaced only thanks to the actions of a BLM whistleblower who previously was involved in the Bundy investigation.

The just-revealed evidence paints a chilling picture of government agents running amok in their zeal to attack Bundy and others who shared his belief that the federal government was overstepping its powers.  According to the allegations outlined by the whistleblower, government agents exhibited a “widespread pattern of bad judgment, lack of discipline, incredible bias, unprofessionalism and misconduct, as well as likely policy, ethical and legal violations among senior and supervisory staff.”  The standoff that ensued from such behavior easily could have resulted in deaths or serious injuries.

That the government insisted – and continues to this day to do so -- on pressing forward with prosecutions in the face of that peaceful resolution, and even knowing of the internal misconduct by its investigators, constitutes a blatant disregard for fairness, sound judgment, and respect for the law and the Bill of Rights. Although this latest egg on the face of the Department of Justice appears to have prompted Session to order an internal investigation – an investigation that ought to encompass not only the BLM and any other federal law enforcement agency involved, but the U.S. Attorney’s office itself – an immediate halt to the entire Bundy prosecution clearly is called for.

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 Bob Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, serving as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, as Vice-Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, and as a member of the Committee on Financial Services.