This actually goes all the way back to 2016, when Bundy staged a 41-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon, to protest the arson convictions of two ranchers who set fires on federal land where they had been grazing their cattle. Late Monday, a jury at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise agreed, awarding the St Luke's Regional Health hospital damages exceeding $50 million, the hospital announced after making defamatory statements against the hospital and its employees.
Pay up Ammon!
Bundy did not defend himself nor approve lawyers to defend him. St. Lukes issue was over a child of a friend of Ammons.
Bundy blundered by not engaging pro bono lawyers.
Bundy's People's Rights group has characterized the intervention as “medical kidnapping” and “child trafficking” on social media platforms.
In an earlier YouTube video, Bundy asked followers to protest at the homes of child protection service workers, law enforcement officers and others involved in the protection case.
“I’m not OK with any of this — to be honest with you if justice was to be served, we would go into the hospital, take that baby and we would give it back to their mother," Bundy said.
He added: “And if we were further to administrate justice, we would find those that are accountable and we would prosecute them, and uh, you know, make them pay for the damages that they caused for this family and assure that this never happened again. That’s what should happen.”
Still, he said people should wait until after a hearing scheduled for 1 p.m. that was expected to determine if the child could immediately return home.
“This judge, if he doesn’t return this family back, knowing and seeing the information that is out there ... if he doesn’t straighten this out, then we may have to straighten it out for him,” Bundy said. “And that’s not going to be pretty. It's going to be difficult.”
In the video made later that day, Bundy characterized the situation as an “emergency” and directed people to the Boise hospital because he said the baby was going to be taken to a foster home.
