15 confidential sources fed FBI info from Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

Oregon Live – by Maxine Bernstein

The FBI had 15 confidential sources feeding them information from their contacts with occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a prosecutor confirmed in court Friday.

Ammon Bundy’s lawyer Marcus Mumford is urging the court to compel prosecutors to identify their informants before the defense rests its case in the federal conspiracy trial against his client and six co-defendants.  

“We’re being prosecuted based on the collective actions of others,” Mumford argued.

Defense lawyers, he said, don’t know what these confidential sources “did or how they contributed” to the alleged conspiracy during the 41-day armed takeover of the federal bird sanctuary in eastern Oregon.

Two of the 15 have been identified through trial as Mark McConnell, who was driving the Jeep when Ammon Bundy was arrested on Jan. 26, and Terri Linnell, who was called as a witness by the defense.

U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown asked the government to provide her with unredacted reports from the 15 informants. Each is formally described by the FBI as a “CHS” or confidential human source.

Defense lawyers had received heavily redacted reports on the sources, and their identities were unknown.

Brown later Friday learned that there are 129 reports stemming from the sources that she plans to review over the weekend before ruling whether to grant Mumford’s motion to compel release of the sources’ names or other information.

In other action Friday, the defense called Crane rancher Duane Schrock, who testified that FBI agent Ben Jones visited his ranch. Jones went to the ranch a day after testifying in the trial, Schrock said.

He felt intimidated by Jones, said Schrock, who was subpoenaed to appear as a defense witness.

“He was asking if there was something that I saw and wanted me to say that I saw it,” Schrock said.

Schrock said he had visited the refuge at least three times a week and brought other ranchers to attend presentations on “the Constitution and their rights.”

Until occupation leader Ammon Bundy came to Harney County, Schrock said, “I stuck my head in the sand,” and was living a quiet life.

Schrock, selected to serve as a member of the Committee of Safety formed in Harney County, said he encouraged Bundy to stay in the county.

The defense also called Timothy Puckett Jr. to testify. Puckett works on his father’s ranch about a quarter-mile east of the refuge. It was a fence bordering the Puckett ranch that Bundy and others cut down during the occupation.

Puckett, testifying via a video feed from a friend’s home in Burns, said Ammon Bundy and older brother Ryan Bundy had visited him and he considered them friends. He said the Bundys had permission to be on their property and that a farm hand gave them permission to cut a couple of T-posts from the fence. He said the fence was in poor shape from an earlier flood.

During cross-examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight quickly pointed out that the fence was the property of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

“So you couldn’t have given authority to cut that fence” even if you did?

“No,” Puckett acknowledged.

The jury was sent home about 2:30 p.m. Friday. Testimony is expected to resume Monday morning. The case likely will be sent to the jury sometime late next week.

A motion to quash a subpoena from defendant Ryan Bundy seeking documents and donation information from the nonprofit the Friends of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is pending before the court.

— Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/15_confidential_sources_fed_fb.html