NATION/WORLD
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
East Oregonian
Page 7A
Key Malheur refuge occupier
Trump triumphs as GOP nominee,
pleads guilty; Bundys stay in jail completing stunning climb to top
STEVEN DUBOIS
Associated Press
PORTLAND
—
A
military veteran accused
of taking leadership roles
in two armed standoffs
involving federal authorities
pleaded guilty Tuesday in
Oregon to a conspiracy
charge and is expected to do
the same involving charges
in Nevada, prosecutors said.
Meanwhile, a federal
judge decided to keep
brothers Ammon and Ryan
Bundy behind bars as they
await their September trial
in Portland on conspiracy
charges.
The brothers have been
accused of leading the
standoffs at a wildlife refuge
in Oregon and their family
ranch in Nevada.
At the federal courthouse
in Portland, Ryan Payne
of Anaconda, Montana,
acknowledged
that
he
conspired with others to
prevent Interior Department
employees from doing their
jobs this winter during the
occupation of the Malheur
National Wildire Refuge.
In a plea deal that
included talks with prose-
cutors in Nevada, the U.S.
attorney’s ofice in Oregon
recommended that Payne’s
likely
3½-year
prison
sentence run at the same
time as the punishment he
could receive for his role in
a 2014 standoff with federal
agents at a Nevada ranch
owned by Cliven Bundy,
Assistant U.S. Attorney
Craig Gabriel said.
In Nevada, the deal calls
for Payne to plead guilty
to three charges, with one
involving the brandishing
of a irearm that carries
a mandatory minimum
sentence of seven years,
Gabriel said.
Nevada prosecutors plan
to recommend 12 years in
prison, and Payne’s defense
will push for less, Gabriel
said.
Payne, 32, told U.S.
District Court Judge Anna
J. Brown in Portland that
his irst adult decision was
joining the military, where
he took an oath to uphold
Les Zaitz/The Oregonian via AP
Ryan Payne, an Army veteran from Montana,
participates in a community meeting in Burns
Jan. 1. He was among key militiamen who seized con-
trol of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and plead-
ed guilty to conspiracy charges Tuesday in Portland.
the Constitution.
Payne said he came to
Oregon last year to do that
by defending two ranchers
he believes were wrongly
imprisoned for setting ires.
He and others, including
Ammon and Ryan Bundy,
occupied the refuge from
Jan. 2 until their arrests
nearly a month later. A few
holdouts continued the
armed protest until Feb. 11.
“In pursuing that effort,
I have come to understand
that folks who work for the
government perceived my
actions as intimidating and
threatening,” Payne said in
court.
Payne was arrested
during a trafic stop while
traveling with Arizona
rancher Robert “LaVoy”
Finicum and others to a
community meeting off the
refuge.
Payne complied with
oficers and left the vehicle.
Finicum and the others
drove away, and Finicum
was fatally shot by authori-
ties at a roadblock.
Gabriel said Payne, the
eighth man to plead guilty
in the Oregon case, took
a leadership role in the
occupation,
coordinating
armed guards and providing
tactical training.
He is scheduled to be
sentenced Nov. 18 but that
date could get pushed back
based on developments in
BRIEFLY
Turkey ires tens of
thousands in coup
plotters hunt
attempted coup could have
been staged as a pretext for
the Erdogan government to
seize even more power.
ISTANBUL (AP) —
Asserting that “all the
evidence” points to a
U.S.-based Muslim cleric
as the mastermind of last
week’s failed coup, Turkey’s
government on Tuesday
ired tens of thousands of
teachers, university deans
and others accused of ties to
the plot and demanded the
cleric’s extradition.
Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan raised the
issue in a phone call with
U.S. President Barack
Obama, and his spokesman
said the government
was preparing a formal
extradition request for the
cleric, Fethullah Gulen. But
he also suggested that the
U.S. government shouldn’t
require the facts before
extraditing him.
“A person of this kind
can easily be extradited on
grounds of suspicion,” said
the spokesman, Ibrahim
Kalin. “And there is very
strong suspicion for his
involvement, for Gulen’s
involvement, in this coup
attempt. So this is suficient
ground.”
Later, White House
spokesman Josh Earnest said
that Turkey had submitted
materials related to Gulen
and the administration
was reviewing whether
they amounted to a formal
extradition request. Earnest
added that a decision on
whether to extradite would
be made under a treaty
between the two countries
— not by Obama.
The extradition
demand is likely to strain
U.S.-Turkey ties as the
Obama administration
refers the matter to the
Justice Department, which
will determine whether the
Turkish government has
established probable cause
that a crime was committed.
Gulen has strongly denied
the government’s charges,
suggesting that Friday’s
Feds remove the
lesser prairie
chicken from
protection list
ALBUQUERQUE,
N.M. (AP) — Facing an
uphill court ight, the U.S.
government announced
Tuesday it was formally
removing the lesser prairie
chicken from a federal
protection list under the
Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service said the
move follows recent court
rulings in Texas that stripped
the lesser prairie chicken
of federal protection.
However, federal oficials
say the removal didn’t mean
authorities had concluded
the lesser prairie chicken
didn’t warrant federal
protection.
The previous rulings
found that Fish and Wildlife
failed to make a proper
evaluation of a multistate
conservation plan when
it listed the lesser prairie
chicken as threatened.
Oil and gas groups
had strongly opposed the
threatened listing. The
Permian Basin Petroleum
Association said it would
impede operations and cost
companies hundreds of
millions of dollars in oil and
gas development in one of
the country’s most proliic
basins, the Permian Basin
in the Texas Panhandle and
eastern New Mexico.
Ranchers also opposed
the listing.
The lesser prairie
chicken’s Great Plains
habitat has shrunk by more
than 80 percent since the
1800s, and its population by
99 percent. It lives primarily
in Kansas, but also in Texas,
New Mexico, Oklahoma and
Colorado. About 95 percent
of the bird’s range is on
private lands.
Nevada, where authorities
say Payne recruited gunmen
and led an armed assault
on federal oficers who
attempted to round-up the
Bundys’ cattle near Bunker-
ville.
Ammon and Ryan Bundy
are also charged in that case,
and would have likely been
sent to a Nevada jail if U.S.
District Court Judge Robert
Jones had not decided
Tuesday to keep them in
custody at a downtown
Portland jail.
Jones previously granted
pretrial release to many
of the men and women
indicted on conspiracy
charges in the case. But in
a written opinion, Jones
said the Bundys are not
good candidates for release
because the confrontations
show they believe they are
justiied in refusing federal
orders and might not appear
for trial Sept. 7.
“More
dangerously,
they may attempt to recruit
another standoff or occupa-
tion,” he wrote.
The judge also cited what
jailhouse deputies described
as an effort by Ryan Bundy
to escape. A search of his
cell on April 8 yielded a
rope made with multiple
sheets tied together, author-
ities said.
“I reject his excuse that
he was practicing braiding,”
Jones wrote.
CLEVELAND
(AP)
— Cementing an extraor-
dinary political takeover,
Republicans
nominated
Donald Trump Tuesday
night as their presidential
standard-bearer, hitching
their hopes of keeping
Democrat Hillary Clinton
out of the White House on
an unorthodox candidate
who has sown divisions
within the party and across
the nation.
While it was Trump’s
night,
Clinton
was
frequently the focus.
New Jersey Gov. Chris
Christie energized the
crowd with a full-throated
takedown
of
Clinton,
imploring delegates to
shout “Guilty!” as he ticked
through numerous accusa-
tions of wrongdoing.
Trump addressed the
convention briely in video-
taped remarks, thanking
them for formally nomi-
nating him as the party’s
White House candidate. “
“This is a movement, but
we have to go all the way,”
he said.
For Trump, the celebra-
tions were a much-needed
opportunity to regroup after
a chaotic convention kickoff
that included a plagiarism
charge involving wife
Melania Trump’s address on
opening night.
There were no big
missteps Tuesday, but the
event was void of the glitzy,
Hollywood touch Trump
promised, with a series
of Republican oficials
parading on stage to level
sharp, but repetitive, criti-
cisms of Clinton.
The evening’s program
ended on an unusual note,
with an actress-turned-av-
ocado farmer delivering
the closing speech — a
spot normally reserved for
prominent speakers.
Trump’s family again
took center stage, under-
scoring the campaign’s
urgent task to reshape the
image of a candidate seen
by large swaths of voters as
harsh and divisive. Two of
Trump’s children testiied
to his character, casting
him as a man undeterred by
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
Ann-Marie Villicana from Pasadena, Calf., cheers
during the second day session of the Republican Na-
tional Convention in Cleveland, Tuesday.
challenges.
“For my father, impos-
sible is just the starting
point,”
said
Donald
Trump Jr., the oldest of the
Republican nominee’s ive
children. Questions about
plagiarism surfaced for a
second day in a row, this time
in the eldest son’s speech.
But F.H. Buckley, the writer
behind the original work
in question this time — an
article in The American
Conservative — said he was
a principal speechwriter for
the younger Trump and said
the campaign did nothing
wrong.
For some Republicans,
the night also offered a
glimpse of what could have
been. House Speaker Paul
Ryan, who resisted calls to
jump into the presidential
race, made a vigorous call
for party unity — though
his message focused more
on the risks of letting Demo-
crats keep the White House
and make gains in Congress
than a rationale for Trump.
“Let’s compete in every
part of America, and turn
out at the polls like every
last vote matters, because it
will,” Ryan said.
Many
Republican
leaders stayed away from
the convention, still wary
of being associated with
the divisive candidate and
unsure how his nomination
impacts their own political
futures.
The crowd gathered in
the cavernous convention
hall relected the growing
dissatisfaction among some
Republicans with party
elites. Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell,
who has been a lukewarm
supporter of Trump, was
greeted with a smattering of
boos as he took the stage.
It was one of the occa-
sional lurries of dissent
on the convention loor,
including jeers as states that
Trump did not win recorded
their votes during the nomi-
nating roll call vote. Still,
Trump far outdistanced his
primary rivals, and his vice
presidential pick, Indiana
Gov. Mike Pence, was also
formally nominated.
Trump was put over the
top by his home state of New
York. Four of his children
joined the state’s delegation
on the convention loor for
the historic moment and
appeared overwhelmed with
emotion.
Wife Melania Trump
was praised for making
progress in highlighting her
husband’s personal qualities
during her Monday night
address. She spoke of his
“simple goodness” and his
loyalty and love of family
— while noting the “drama”
that comes with Trump in
politics.
But her speech was
quickly
overtaken
by
charges that it included two
passages— each 30 words
or longer — that matched
a 2008 Democratic conven-
tion address by Michelle
Obama nearly word-for-
word.