Trump pardons ranchers convicted of arson

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned a pair of Oregon cattle ranchers who had been serving out sentences for arson on federal land — punishments that inspired the armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in 2016 and brought widespread attention to a movement against federal land management in the western United States.

The ranchers, Dwight L. Hammond, now 76, and his son, Steven D. Hammond, 49, became a cause celebre for an anti-government group’s weekslong standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

The Hammonds have a long history of conflict with the federal government, which led some of their supporters to argue that their sentences for the 2001 and 2006 fires were unfair and reflected the need to wrest control of public lands from the federal government and give it to the states.

“The Hammonds are multigeneration cattle ranchers in Oregon imprisoned in connection with a fire that leaked onto a small portion of neighboring public grazing land,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement Tuesday. “The evidence at trial regarding the Hammonds’ responsibility for the fire was conflicting, and the jury acquitted them on most of the charges.”

The pardons will shave some time off the Hammonds’ five-year D. Hammond sentences — Dwight Hammond has served three years and Steven Hammond has served four. They also undo an Obama administration appeal to impose longer sentences for the Hammonds and suggest the Trump administration supports ranchers in the battle over federal lands.

“Awesome, awesome, awesome,” said Ryan Bundy, who helped lead the occupation of the federal wildlife refuge near the Hammond ranch. “It’s been a long time coming. That is good news.”

Some conservation groups strongly opposed the decision.

Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of the group Defenders of Wildlife, noted that the Hammonds were convicted of arson, a serious crime.

“Whatever prompted President Trump to pardon them, we hope that it is not seen as an encouragement to those who might use violence to seize federal property and threaten federal employees in the West,” Clark said.

The dozens of armed people who occupied the refuge near the Hammond ranch for 41 days said the Hammonds were victims of federal overreach. They changed the refuge’s name to the Harney County Resource Center, reflecting their belief that the federal government has only a limited right to own property within a state.

The Hammonds were being held at a federal detention center south of Los Angeles. It wasn’t immediately clear when they’d be released.