Bundy Says He’s Speaking to Federal Bureau of Investigation

Ammon Bundy sits at a desk he’s using at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in OR on Friday, Jan. 22, 2016.

Oregon’s governor expressed anger Wednesday over federal authorities’ handling of the occupation of a national wildlife refuge by an armed group and said she intends to bill the USA government for what the occupation is costing state taxpayers.

The leader of an armed group occupying a national wildlife refuge in OR met briefly with a federal agent but left because the official wouldn’t talk with him in front of the media.

“The residents of Harney County have been overlooked and underserved by federal officials’ response thus far”, she said during a press conference Wednesday.

Ammon Bundy, who is the self-proclaimed leader of the armed occupation, spoke on the phone with an FBI negotiator at the driveway to the airport, where federal authorities have set up shop, The Associated Press reported.

Bundy borrowed a cellphone from an Federal Bureau of Investigation agent as he stood at a police blockade in the cold Thursday afternoon for a one-hour conversation between himself and an Federal Bureau of Investigation negotiator.

Bundy told reporters that meant he’d lost a bet.

When the negotiator said the sheriff had asked for federal help, Bundy responded, “You do not have the people’s authority to be here”.

Bundy was not alone Thursday.

The negotiator, identified only as “Chris”, heard Bundy’s anti-government complaints before agreeing to talk again by phone Friday. The conversation was streamed online by a member of Bundy’s protest group, according to CBS News.

Bundy said his group is “not going to escalate” the situation, and he agreed to speak with authorities again Friday. The conversation occurred amid a flurry of calls from state and local leaders for federal authorities to ramp up efforts to drive the occupiers out of town. But those are the questions that for more than a century have shaped federal grazing policy in the West. In recent decades that policy has altered in a way that many ranchers fear is leaving them behind and eliminating a way of life that has sustained generations.

This signing ceremony “will double the amount of ranchers” standing up for their rights, he said. The father-son ranchers were sentenced to serve five years after setting fire to their own land that ended up damaging part of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

A grader is used on a road at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in OR on Friday, Jan. 22, 2016.

“I request on behalf of my fellow Oregonians that you instruct your agencies to end the unlawful occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as safely and quickly as possible”. The U.S. Forest Service started regulating its rangeland by 1907 after overgrazing by sheep and cattle became a problem.

The protest leader was present at a community meeting Tuesday night and he listened quietly as locals began chanting, “Go.”

Bundy has said he believes his group’s work is appreciated by locals. He said the armed men have been “helping ranchers”, doing maintenance on the refuge because “it’s in a bad shape”, and taking care of fire hazards in the refuge’s fire house. The high desert area that contains marshland was designated in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt to protect birds that stopped there to rest during long migrations.