The Bundys and the U.S. Constitution

To the editor:

U. S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro on Jan. 8, 2018 dismissed “with prejudice” all charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his sons. “With prejudice” means that the federal prosecutors could not come back again for yet another long, drawn-out, costly trial. Cliven Bundy has already been incarcerated for 700 days.

Judge Navarro denounced the government’s misconduct as “especially egregious,” “grossly shocking,” “reckless” and “willful.” She found prosecutors had engaged in a “deliberate attempt to mislead” and had made multiple misrepresentations to the defense and to the court. “The court has found that a universal sense of justice has been violated.”

Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is the federal government granted enumerated, or even implied, power to exercise sovereignty, dominion, jurisdiction and authority over lands within the border of these western states unless it has been granted that right by the legislature of the state. This the states have not done. And in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, even then, only for “forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings.” If the Constitution doesn’t mean what it says, then we have no Constitution.

It is time to follow the United States Constitution and restore the “Rule of Law.” So help us God!

—Tony Kimberlin

Libby