AGENDA 21 RADIO

BY PAUL PRESTON

SOURCE: OREGONIAN

U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown is standing by her past ruling that employees at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge can’t testify about any fear they may have felt during last winter’s occupation by armed protesters.

Oregon standoff defendant Duane Ehmer gets into heated exchange with prosecutor

Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrow had urged the judge to reconsider and allow limited testimony in the second occupation trial from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service employees who worked at the refuge. He said he expected one or more employees would testify that they had seen media coverage of the armed takeover and as a result, “feared coming to work.”

ADDITIONAL EVENTS

– Federal prosecutors have asked the court to summon Gary Hunt to federal court in Oregon to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt of court for failing to take down blog posts that identify FBI informants involved in the refuge occupation case. The judge had asked the prosecutors to explain what jurisdiction she has to summon Hunt, who lives in California and is not a party to this case, to federal court in Oregon.

Prosecutors want the court to hold Hunt in civil contempt of a court order to remove the material he posted on FBI informants, arguing that he doesn’t hold a First Amendment privilege to publish the material. Even if he did, prosecutors argue that the government’s interests would outweigh any privilege.

FBI HAD NO WARRANT

–The judge has granted prosecutors more time to file additional information to challenge defendant Duane Ehmer’s motion to suppress evidence found in what his lawyer contends was an unlawful search of Ehmer’s car and horse trailer upon his arrest on Jan. 27, 2016. In arguments Tuesday, Ehmer’s lawyer Michele Kohler argued that Ehmer’s arrest that day wasn’t by federal arrest warrant, as FBI agents had testified, since the warrant wasn’t signed until a day later.

“It’s way curious to me that all of them testified about an arrest warrant when there isn’t one – so this is a problem,” the judge said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel countered that Ehmer had voluntarily signed a form that gave agents his consent to search his vehicle and trailer. Gabriel added that the arrest likely rested upon a probable cause statement, but he needed to research that further.

The ruling could impact the FBI’s discovery a day later, on Jan. 28, 2016, of a maroon pouch found under a passenger seat in Ehmer’s car, which held cash and checks belonging to the Friends of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a refuge employee’s ID card and gas cards. Ehmer is charged with removal of government property, a misdemeanor, in connection with the pouch.