In its final moments Wednesday, the Trump administration granted two 10-year grazing permits to the father-son duo whose convictions and imprisonment for setting fires on public lands gave rise to the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon.
FILE – In this July 11, 2018, file photo, rancher Dwight Hammond Jr., left, is embraced by his wife, Susie Hammond, after arriving by private jet at the Burns Municipal Airport in Burns, Ore. Hammond and his son Steven, convicted of intentionally setting fires on public land in Oregon, were pardoned by President Donald Trump. The outgoing Trump administration has awarded grazing allotments to the Hammonds, whose case sparked the takeover of a federal wildlife refuge by right-wing extremists in 2016. (Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP, File)
Highlights of Bidenâs Inauguration Day: The Ceremonies, Parades, Protests and Performances
Last Updated
Jan. 20, 2021, 10:44 p.m. ETJan. 20, 2021, 10:44 p.m. ET
Hereâs what our reporters and photographers saw as the tumultuous Trump era drew to a close and a new chapter began for the United States.
Image
Fireworks erupted near the White House at the end of President Bidenâs daylong inauguration festivities.Credit.Jason Andrew for The New York Times
This blog has ended. Follow our
Jan. 20, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ETJan. 20, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ET
Credit.Biden Inaugural Committee
As Demi Lovato performed Bill Withersâs groovy tune â accompanied by cameos from health care workers â the new president danced in the Oval Office alongside the first lady and with one of his grandchildren in his arms.
Notorious Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy says he is ready to “walk towards guns” if the Biden administration takes action to force him to pay up for decades’ worth of rent and fines or seize his cattle that graze for free on public lands, he said in an interview. Observers believe it might not be the best time for Bundy to make an armed stand on government land in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by extremist Donald Trump supporters..
Published on January 19th, 2021
Remember Cliven Bundy, the stubborn Nevada rancher whose decades-long refusal to pay grazing fees for cattle he runs on federal land led to a 2014 armed stand-off at his family ranch and in 2016, another armed stand-off led by his son Ammon Bundy in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge?
Cliven Bundy mugshot
By Meteor Blades
The latter had been home to the indigenous Moapa Paiute until they were forced out at gunpoint in the 1870s. The elder Bundy claims ancestral rights to that land because of his libertarian views and, he claims, because his ancestors came on
The Mayflower. Bundy wound up in pre-trial detention for 18 months over the 2014 stand-off, but because of prosecutorial misconduct, he was released and his case adjudged a mistrial. New charges weren’t filed. He and his large family continue to run cattle on federal land without paying the modest grazing fees. By 2014, 21 years after he began refusing to pay for
Journalist Leah Sottile examined that in the podcast “Bundyville” from Oregon Public Broadcasting and Longreads.
With the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and the 10-year anniversary of the attempted bombing in Spokane, NWPB revisited some of those past conversations to remember how they’re still relevant now.
WATCH: Reviewing Anti-Government Extremism With ‘Bundyille’ Podcast Host Leah Sottile
(Story continues below video)
“But with this (second) season, we really kind of unpack this idea that extremist ideologies are being repeated by mainstream politicians, by local politicians, all the way up to the federal government,” Sottile told NWPB’s
Uniquely NW News in August 2019. “So what does it mean when all of a sudden the anti-government movement is a part of the government? That’s where we go with this season is trying to understand what changes when extremist ideologies become slightly more mainstream.”