Probe finds state lawmaker engaged in ‘domestic terrorism’
A Washington state lawmaker took part in “domestic terrorism” against the United States during a 2016 standoff at a wildlife refuge in Oregon and traveled throughout the West meeting with far-right extremist groups, according to an investigative report released Thursday.
The report prepared for the state legislature said Rep. Matt Shea, a Republican from Spokane Valley in eastern Washington, also found that he trained young people to fight a “holy war,” condoned intimidating opponents and promoted militia training by the Patriot Movement for possible armed conflict with law enforcement.
Shea was suspended from the state House Republican Caucus on Thursday evening, and advised to resign, House Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox tweeted. “He cannot use House Republican staff, he cannot meet with the caucus, his office will be moved,” Wilcox said. Shea will also be removed from his House committee assignments.
The incoming House Speaker, Democratic Rep. Laurie Jinkins, said the report had been forwarded to federal prosecutors and the FBI. She said her caucus would continue to work with Republicans to explore options based on the report’s findings.
Both Democratic and Republican politicians had earlier demanded Shea’s resignation. Shea did not respond to phone and email messages requesting comment by The Associated Press on Thursday.
Prior to the release of the report, Shea was defiant.
“I will not back down,”’ Shea said. “I will continue to fight for our shared values that have made this country such a blessing to the rest of the world.”
Shea said he has been denied any opportunity to reviewand respond to the report, prepared by an outside investigator. The report noted Shea declined to be interviewed as part of the probe. The investigative team, headed by a former FBI agent and a former law enforcement officer, was hired in July.
The team’s findings, first reported by the news website Crosscut, said: “Investigators obtained evidence that Representative Shea planned, engaged in, and promoted a total of three armed conflicts of political violence against the United States ... in three states outside the State of Washington over a three-year period to include 2014, 2015 and 2016.”
One of the findings of the report was that Shea “participated in an act of domestic terrorism” when in 2016 he visited the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in support of its armed occupation by two sons of rancher Cliven Bundy.
Shea “engaged in conversations with Ammon Bundy and other militia members in the planning and preparation of the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon,’’ the report said.