Idaho state legislators sign letter asking Sessions to back off Bundy prosecutions

Source of the story: http://www.paulstramer.net/2017/09/idaho-state-legislators-sign-letter.html

          By Paul Stramer

Thursday, September 7, 2017

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Evidence is mounting that an Obama-nominated federal judge is determined to continue trying Bundy Ranch defendants until they are found guilty.U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro has decided to force two Bundy Ranch defendants to undergo yet a third trial scheduled to begin on Oct. 10, in what is amounting to a “revenge prosecution” tracing back to former Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid.In a trial that ended Aug. 22, Steven Stewart of Idaho and Ricky Lovelien of Montana were found not guilty while Idaho residents O. Scott Drexler and Eric J. Parker were acquitted on most charges.  But a hung jury deadlocked on assault and weapons charges for these two defendants, voting 11-to-1 on two charges for Drexler and four charges for Parker related to the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff.Judge Navarro, the Harry Reid hand-picked candidate that President Obama nominated to the federal bench in 2009, has decided Drexler and Parker will be included among the seven Bunkerville standoff defendants, including rancher Cliven Bundy,  scheduled to stand trial on Oct. 10. This trial is expected to last about two months.On Aug. 29, 2017, Idaho state representative Dorothy Moon, a Republican, wrote to Attorney General Sessions a letter signed by one-third of all Idaho state legislators, including 26 House members, 8 Senate members, and 5 retired lawmakers, requesting that defendants Drexler and Parker not be forced to undergo yet a third attempt to find them guilty being pursued by the U.S. Justice Department in a case being begun under the Obama administration.A copy of the letter was also addressed to President Trump.The letter read in part as follows:

• We believe that the decision by the current U.S. Attorney of Nevada to prosecute these men a third time represents disrespect for the rule of law and the Jury system. A third trial would show blatant disregard for tax funds collected from hard working law-abiding citizens who are represented by these juries whom have found them innocent of 34 of the 40 charges and hung by the very slimmest margins in those where the jury stood deadlocked. The decisions of 10-2 to acquit in the first trial and 11-1 to acquit in the second trial highlights the narrow margin by which the prosecution hopes to continue their attack.

The letter concluded by asking Sessions to instruct federal prosecutors to set Parker and Drexler free, as well as allowing two other defendants to use time already served as total sentencing in the case.Cliven Bundy has been incarcerated without trial since January 2016.At the trial that ended Aug. 22, U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro had refused to allow attorneys for the defendants to present arguments regarding First Amendment free speech rights or Second Amendment rights to bear arms, ruling both lines of argumentation were not relevant to the criminal charges the four defendants faced.Even more outrageous, Gerald “Jerry DeLemus of Rochester, New Hampshire, was sentenced to five years imprisonment after U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro refused to allow him to change his guilty plea to “not guilty.”In denying DeLemus the right to change his plea, Judge Navarro ruled DeLemus had failed to display sufficient remorse for his actions, rejecting the argument his Sixth Amendment rights had been violated because DeLemus lacked adequate legal counsel capable of apprising him of the legal charges and assisting him in pleading with full knowledge of the facts and the law.Sources close to the DeLemus family told Infowars.com that DeLemus wanted to change his plea and face trial because he came to the conclusion he would be acquitted on charges virtually identical to the charges all Lovelien, Steward, Parker, and Drexler successfully defended to be found “not guilty” in the jury verdict handed down Aug. 22.As Roger Stone has pointed out, an underlying factor in the Bundy Ranch case is that former Democratic Party Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wanted the Bundy Ranch land to install Chinese solar panels in a deal where the Chinese company seeking to build the solar panel plant had employed lawyer Rory Reid, the son of Sen. Reid, to be the primary representative for the U.S. corporation fronting the deal.Now serving out the remaining six years of his prison term, DeLemus was permanently moved in August to the federal prison at Fort Devens in Ayers, Massachusetts, some 90-minutes away from his home and his wife.