During the political noise of a week in which a new nominee was announced for the US Supreme Court, the president convinced NATO freeloaders to finally start paying their fair share for Europe’s defense, and FBI Very Special Agent and Hillary Clinton foot massager Peter Strzok testified before the House Judiciary, President Trump quietly pardoned two political prisoners of the corrupt Obama regime.
Oregon rancher Dwight Hammond and his son, Stephen Hammond, were prosecuted by the Obama regime as “terrorists” under a 1996 law for accidentally burning some weeds on federal land in the middle of nowhere in Oregon. The treatment of the Hammonds and the patriots who turned out to support them in the wake of their “re-sentencing” by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals at Obama’s request can only be described as banana republic-style justice.
Prosecutors presented conflicting evidence against the Hammonds in their initial trial. The government accused the Hammonds of slaughtering a herd of deer and then intentionally starting a wildfire to cover up the evidence. A jury acquitted them of most of the charges at trial.
What the Hammonds pleaded guilty to was starting a controlled burn on their own property – a common practice in the west – which then got out of control and burn a small piece of federal land. In central Oregon, this amounts to mostly some sagebrush and other weeds. No buildings were burned, and no human lives were at stake.
The federal judge exercised prosecutorial discretion, sentencing the elderly Dwight Hammond to three months in jail and Stephen Hammond to one year and one day. The Hammonds served their sentence and were released – but then the Obama inJustice Department decided to re-try and re-sentence them as terrorists. Bitter clingers in rural America could not be allowed to walk around as free men!
Federal law calls for a minimum five-year sentence for terrorism charges, which is what the 9th Circuit Court and Obama DOJ lawyers used to put the Hammonds back in prison. The Hammonds are clearly not terrorists. They were not making a political statement by accidentally burning some weeds in the middle of nowhere.
The way in which the Obama regime selectively administered prosecutorial discretion is truly an outrage. Illegal aliens who pretend they were brought to America by their parents – and who were required to present no evidence of that claim – were not prosecuted and deported by Obama. Prosecutorial discretion was perfectly fine for foreign invaders.
But when a judge exercises discretion by not sentencing Americans – who are clearly not terrorists – to a full five-year sentence, well… that was beyond the pale for the Obama regime.
Events then took a turn for the surreal, after the Hammonds were put back in jail. The fallout included armed patriots occupying the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in rural Oregon and a standoff with federal officials that lasted several weeks.
The outcome of those events made the Obama regime look so tyrannical that most of the mainstream media suppressed the news. Aside from The Oregonian newspaper, very few outlets outside of Oregon gave the events major coverage (once the standoff was resolved).
Ammon and Ryan Bundy, Ryan Payne, LaVoy Finicum and others proceeded to occupy the refuge despite the Hammonds never asking for assistance. The media universally refused to report that the “occupiers” were all devout Mormons.
These were all “rural” Americans from the ranching community who were protesting a gross miscarriage of justice. Although they were armed, the occupiers made no threats against federal agents who surrounded the refuge.
If you haven’t taken the time to watch the Oregon State Police footage and cell phone videos published on YouTube of the LaVoy Finicum assassination, you should do so, if for no other reason than to see how the Obama regime, the Deep State and the FBI will treat ordinary citizens if they forcibly question an injustice.
LaVoy Finicum’s vehicle was forced off the road into a snowbank. Mr. Finicum steps out of his vehicle with his empty hands in the air – and as he does so, at least one round from an FBI sniper’s rifle hits the vehicle (clearly visible in the cell phone video recorded by one of the occupants).
An OSP surveillance drone shows Finicum with his hands up as he is surrounded by Oregon State Troopers and FBI agents. At least one State Trooper jumps out behind Finicum and shoots him in the back (the official report says three troopers shot him in the back).
He may or may not have been reaching for a weapon at the time; it is unclear from the video, so we are left with the word of the government agents who shot him in the back.
Back to the shot that was fired at Finicum as he stepped out of the vehicle, hands in the air: That FBI assassin was later indicted for lying, by claiming he had not fired at a vehicle full of people that was at a full stop and represented no threat to the officers or agents at that point.
The media was also hesitant to report the fact that long after the “standoff” ended, a jury acquitted the Ammon brothers of all charges at trial. Not guilty on all counts.
Unfortunately for the Ammons, Democrats never like to comply with the law. Instead of releasing the Ammons immediately, the corrupt Obama inJustice Department requested to keep the Ammons in jail, so they could later be tried in a different case in a different state.
The US Marshals had no detainer and therefore no justification for keeping them jailed in Oregon. They were “not guilty,” a term which means “innocent” – but not in the eyes of the Obama regime!
As the Ammons’ attorney pleaded with the court to release his innocent clients, the US Marshals tasered the defense lawyer and tackled him in the courtroom!
That’s not a typo or an exaggeration. They tasered and tackled the defense lawyer at trial for making a request from the judge. The corrupt Obama regime charged the lawyer with “resisting” the marshals in October of 2016. The Trump administration dropped the charges against the attorney in February of 2017.
In the little coverage that the Hammonds’ pardon received in the mainstream media, President Trump is criticized as using his presidential pardon power to pardon his political supporters. The media must deflect from the truth of the matter – which is that the Hammonds were political prisoners of a corrupt regime.
Americans should look at this saga and never forget the way that Obama, the FBI and the US Marshals treated our fellow citizens. Obama and his federal lackeys did everything wrong in this case.
Fortunately for America, President Trump continues to set things right. Congratulations to the Hammonds on their newfound freedom, although that is little recompense for the way that the feds treated them and for the loss of their neighbor.
