“After this brouhaha, every conservative legal eagle and constitutional scholar in the United States willl be lining up to represent Bundy.”
I doubt it. The legal arguments he uses have never won in court. My guess is the government will ask a court for liens against his bank accounts and against any future sale of cattle. Banks (FDIC) will turn over money and protestors cannot stop it.
“He [Bundy] says he doesn’t recognize federal authority over state land...Arizona state Rep. Bob Thorpe of Flagstaff said he and state legislators weren’t arguing whether Bundy broke laws or violated grazing agreements.”
If the feds don’t have authority over the land, then Arizona needs to take back 11,000 sq miles Congress took from Arizona and gave to Nevada by an act of Congress in 1866...and Utah needs to take back 21,000 sq miles given to Nevada at the same time.
You may be right.
I’ve never been to law school and I’m not up to speed on the relevant cases.
However, I do think he’s going to have loads of hot lawyers on his side now, ready and willing to take on this case for the publicity alone (win OR lose), and that’ll certainly improve his chances.
There are a few new legalities that have come up during this chaos. Another rancher’s cattle were found during the gather...grazing in the same area without a lease. I haven’t seen anything about that rancher being in trouble with the government. Selective enforcement? There is also issue with Nevada being an open range state meaning if the government did not have the cows fenced out by state law it was might be legal for them to be there. The first confrontation when the son was arrested...was he just trying to video what was happening? The amount of force and different things the feds did- violation of rights issues? I have seen where people say the land in question was set aside by congress for grazing. If it is now being converted to other use is that legal? The government has been taking away grazing areas all over the West for many years so this could be a big issue. The list goes on and on with legal issues other than the ones that brought Bundy to this point. This will likely be in court forever on one issue or another. Field day for lawyers looks to me like.