BUNDYS, THEIR SUPPORTERS CONSIDER BUNKERVILLE STANDOFF IN 2014 A VICTORY

the second time because there was absolutely no proof that anyone on the Bundy side threatened anybody on the federal side,” Hadley said. “Zero.”

No shots were fired during the standoff. The Bundys and their supporters consider the standoff as a victory.

Federal officers avoided violence by showing restraint, Donnelly said.

Cliven Bundy did not pay grazing fees to the federal government for years and had rolled up a bill of about $1 million, Donnelly said.

“Cliven Bundy and his ilk were breaking the law,” he said. “They were grazing their cattle illegally by not paying their grazing fees. And they were breaking the law for many, many years.

“This was not just, ‘Oops, we broke the law once.’ This was 21 years of not paying their grazing fees, which is including fees and taxes,” Donnelly said. “He (Cliven Bundy) owed $1 million. And their premise was, ‘This isn’t your land to charge me grazing fees on.’ Well, the law says differently. Then they mounted an armed insurrection because they chose not to pay their taxes.”

The feds should not have been carrying weapons, Hadley said.

“What happened to get all of the people with weapons to the Bundy ranch was extraordinary,” Hadley said. “The Bureau of Land Management — they are really not police. They are federal-land managers and biologists, and they shouldn’t even be carrying weapons . .... The jurisdiction on the Bundy ranch is the Clark County sheriff. They were in control, and they should have stopped the federal agents from coming in there with uniforms like they are in Iraq or Afghanistan with M4s and M16s with no decals on the trucks so you couldn’t tell Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from the Park Service, BLM from FBI.”

Ray Hagar is a retired political journalist from the Reno Gazette-journal and current reporter/columnist for the Nevada Newsmakers podcast and website, nevadanewsmakers.com.