Oregon Militants Face Unusual DOJ Charge

Ammon Bundy and a group of other protesters were arrested, and one fatally shot, this week after more than a month occupying a federal building at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Now that the protesters are in custody, the Justice Department has chosen a surprisingly cautious charge to press against them: conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States. The charge carries a maximum penalty of just six years. “To prosecutors, the cirtue of such conspiracy charges are their flexibility,” Ken White, a partner at Brown White & Osborn LLP, writes in the Los Angeles Times. “The government need only prove that two or more of the defendants agreed to prevent some federal employee from discharging his or her duty by force, intimidation or threat.” They don’t need to prove that the protesters were successful. White elaborates on why DOJ is taking such an approach with a group of “self-styled revolutionaries.”