title:  Republican Lawmakers Helped Orchestrate The Bundy Standoff, Wanted War With Feds (AUDIO)
text: These Republican politicians should be in jail right next to the Bundys.As it turns out, there is more to the armed standoff that took place at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. And Americans should be outraged.According to Oregon Public Radio (OPB) several Republican lawmakers, including Nevada state Rep. Michele Fiore, Oregon state Rep. Dallas Heard, Idaho state Rep. Judy Boyle, Washington state Rep. Matt Shea and others, knew Ammon and Ryan Bundy were planning to illegally lead an armed takeover of federal property in Oregon before it happened, and they chose not to warn law enforcement.Fiore, Shea, and other GOP lawmakers are part of a group known as the Coalition of Western States which seeks to force the federal government to surrender federally protected lands to the states.Greenlee County, Arizona, Commissioner Robert Corbell, who went to Nevada to support Cliven Bundy s standoff with the Bureau of Land Management in 2014, admitted to OPB that after being a largely ignored group after that confrontation ended, the Coalition of Western States caught wind of another standoff that would be going down in Oregon and kept quite about it so that their group could get more attention for their illegal cause.Corbell told OPB that coalition leadership knew Ammon Bundy planned to take over U.S. government property in Harney County before it happened, but were unsure which federal outpost it would be.We knew he was going to do something,  Corbell said.COWS believes it is unconstitutional for the federal government to own land even though the Constitution specifically gives the federal government the power to own and regulate lands through what is known as the Property Clause.Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2 states:The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.Yet, Fiore and her fellow GOP lawmakers actively conspired to spark a land war with federal authorities in an effort to force the government to comply with their demands and give up their constitutional powers.OPB reports that despite being warned by Judge Steve Grasty during a meeting to stay away from the militants so as not to  embolden  them and cause the occupation to last weeks or months, Fiore and her little band did so anyway.The lawmakers acknowledge they fed the militants information gathered from that meeting, and militant leaders talked openly about what they learned from those disclosures.These Republicans literally presented themselves as negotiators with the intention to end the standoff so that they could enter the seized compound and help the armed militants extend the hostilities.The lawmakers wanted information from law enforcement, including what tactics the FBI anticipated taking against the militants. They wondered aloud, for example, whether refuge power would be cut. Law enforcement personnel repeatedly declined answering. The lawmakers continued to ask.They also wanted to know what criminal charges the occupiers might face. After getting nowhere with that line of inquiry, coalition members asked with whom they could negotiate on behalf of the Ammon Bundy-led militants.Former Washington GOP state Rep. Graham Hunt also participated in the meeting and actually attempted to persuade the FBI into agreeing with militant s demand for a transfer of federal lands. Would it be possible for somebody, whether it s the U.S. Attorney s Office, to say that  We agree that there needs to be a conversation at another level,  Hunt asked.But wait, there s more.Fiore and the coalition aided and abetted the militants in more ways than just feeding them information and trying to coerce the FBI from doing their job. They also helped organize press events and enlisted Anthony Bosworth, a failed candidate for Sheriff, to act as a  security specialist  at the compound. Bosworth even helped militants flee the occupation when it became clear that the FBI wasn t messing around.In the end, Fiore and her group decided that since the jig was up, they might as well look like the heroes, so they reluctantly convinced the last of the militants to surrender.And now they have another goal. They want to keep the Bundys and their fellow terrorists from facing significant criminal punishment for their crimes. They re even going so far as to tell the arrested militants to learn the names of the judges and prosecutors, perhaps as some sort of way to intimidate them into dropping the charges or going easy on them.Here s the report via OPB.The fact is that Republican lawmakers knew this standoff was going to happen and did nothing to prevent it. One person was actually killed and many more could have died on both sides because these sorry excuses for politicians chose to pursue their agenda rather than keep the public safe.Add in the fact that these lawmakers basically acted as spies against the United States by gathering and passing information to the militants as well as egging them on to keep the standoff going longer than it would have and it s clear the FBI needs to arrest and jail a few more people.These Republicans conspired against the United States by aiding the militants and warning them about what law enforcement was doing to end the standoff. They don t belong in places of political power. They belong in prison awaiting sentencing for treason. Featured image via Twitter 