PORTLAND — FBI agents took the witness stand Friday to reveal some of the hundreds of thousands of Facebook posts and private messages that defendants in the Oregon standoff trial made in late December and through the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Ammon Bundy’s Facebook posts in late December and January revealed that several people responding to his “Call for Action” in Burns were confused about what type of event he was planning and urged him to be clearer.
Co-defendant Joseph O’Shaughnessy wrote a private message on Dec. 26 to co-defendant Jon Ritzheimer that read, “I need all patriots here on or before Jan. 2 for the wink…wink…emoticon..rally.”
In response to a message from Gavin Seim on Dec. 30 that said he was getting confusing messages surrounding the “2nd rally,’” Ammon Bundy responded, “I would never show up to a rally without my arms.”
On Dec. 31, Brandon Thomas wrote to Bundy at 12:33 p.m. that he was “seeing a contradiction from the patriot railroad” about the Jan. 2 event in Burns.
“I think you ought to make it more clear that people should not take this as a green light to stand against the FEDS,” co-defendant Jason Blomgren wrote.
“It is much more than a protest,” Bundy responded on New Year’s Eve.
A day after the Jan. 2 takeover of the Harney County refuge, Blomgren messaged Ammon Bundy.
“We are coming,” he wrote at 3:41 a.m. on Jan. 3. “Keep your heads down. You have a lot of worried patriots brother. JokerJ.”
Ammon Bundy responded, “We are staying strong and know what we are doing is right.”
On Jan. 18, Bundy posted publicly on his Facebook page a commercial photo of a man in combat fatigues, his face completely masked by a sand-colored cloth, kneeling on his right knee and holding a .308-caliber military-style assault rifle in his right hand.
Above the photo were these words: “But they drew first blood…,” and then “FORGIVE ME FATHER…” with the words below the photo, “FOR I WILL SIN.”
Bundy’s lawyer Marcus Mumford argued to keep that photo out of the jury’s view, insisting it was unfairly prejudicial. As the judge ruled she would allow it because it spoke to the defendant’s state of mind at the time, Ammon Bundy sat at the defense table, shaking his head.
Three FBI agents who combed through about 300,000 pages of the defendants’ Facebook accounts, searching for terms relevant to the alleged conspiracy, also testified. They read aloud the messages and posts, and put them on computer screens jurors could read them.
On Jan. 7, defendant David Fry wrote: “Mindy…We might be murdered. Don’t tell my mom or dad this..If people really cared..they would support the cause.”
Earlier Friday, the Burns district manager for the Bureau of Land Management, Jeffrey Rose, testified that he decided on Dec. 30 to close the federal agency’s office in Hines on Jan. 4, initially thinking that was the date the rally — organized to protest the return to prison of Harney County ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond — was going to be held.
His decision was based on concerns about the protest, the fact that Ammon Bundy and Ryan Payne — two men who had been involved in a standoff in Nevada with the land management agency already were in Burns, and his viewing of videos of Bundy supporters putting out calls to militia and others to join them, Rose said.
Rose also said threatening emails were sent to his employees, some involving physical threats.
During the occupation of the refuge, two “Closed Permanently” signs were screwed onto the front door of the BLM district office in Hines, and onto a door of a neighboring wildlife fire dispatch building. One night, an American flag in front of his office was removed and replaced with another flag, Rose testified.
Rose, who has lived in Harney County for 28 years, said, “There were a lot of folks in town with a lot of guns around that time … more than I had seen before.”
Ammon Bundy and six co-defendants have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to impede federal officers from doing their work at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Opening statements started on Tuesday, and the trial is expected to last at least nine weeks.
