Elite With The Power Of Their Government Agencies & Federal Courts Victorious In Hage Land Confiscation

The U.S. government has inflicted 40 years of abuse on Nevada’s Hage family.

 

 

It has taken the U.S. Government, including the agencies of the National Parks Service and the Bureau of Land Management and the Federal Courts including Judges, to remove the Wayne Hage Family form their homestead ranch on Pine Creek Ranch purchased by Wayne and Jean Hage in 1978.

 

If you have read Wayne Hage's book "Storm Over Rangelands Private Rights In Federal Lands" you will understand the elite plan to lock up access to the land in the west by using U.S. Congress and the environmentalist agenda to do it.  Wayne documents in his book how this was done and how it has been their intention so institute an "army" to do it.  That's right!  The elite, by using environmentalist, launched a plan to pass legislation that would incrementally encroach upon American rights to acquire and own land, institute National Parks and restrict use of western lands for livestock, timber, and to a lesser extent mining through regulation by agencies such as the National Parks Service, Bureau of Land Management, Environmental Protection Agency among others.  The elite preferred these regulations be enforced at the point of a gun, but the times were not ripe for such an agenda, so they were willing to wait. These elites are now saying to themselves, "don't you just love it when a plan comes together"?  Now we have the militarization of our environmental agencies depicted in the NPS and BLM at Bundy Ranch and being questioned by Sen. Mike Lee in committee, but the elites love it when a plan comes together, and with other damage done to America through their agendas, they don't mind waiting, even if it takes 50 - 100 years!

 

 

As I have been very interested in private property rights for many years the Wayne Hage Case has been very important demonstrating the usurpation of these rights.  I have featured quotes from him in some of my earliest posts here, and so it with that in mind that I continue to post on the subject, including this latest update from the Hage Family after their ranch was foreclosed on in recent weeks, and evidence of more corruption in our courts, this case again featuring a ruling by Judge Gloria Navarro, Bundy Trial fame. 

 

The Ultimate Land Clearance

by Ramona Hage

Recently the Wall Street Journal carried a front-page feature by Jim Carlton highlighting my family, the Hages. It attempted to cover the plight of western ranchers and our 40-year David and Goliath struggle to prevent the federal government from taking our ranch without just compensation through government threats, intimidation, prosecution, and abuse of discretion.  Pine Creek Ranch is now in foreclosure.  We have won enormous landmark victories for western ranchers in multiple bench trials, including a $14 million judgment against the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and in a separate court ruling that the government had engaged in a conspiracy beginning in the 1970s to take our vested water rights and grazing preferences. However, on appeal, the federal courts twisted themselves into a legal pretzel to rule in favor of the government, finally taking our ranch judicially.  Like so many other ranchers before us (many personal friends), we are packing up and moving off the land in a modern-day, government-sponsored land clearance. What is not well-known is the shocking lengths to which the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as well as the Department of Justice, went to circumvent law, law of the case, rules of procedure, and rules of ethical conduct to manufacture rulings which whitewash government misconduct. In light of the nonstop headline news swirling around DOJ and federal courts, it is worth noting that the rank lawlessness we are witnessing on the nightly news is not limited to a few political appointees, but is endemic throughout the courts and federal agencies.  Since moving to Pine Creek Ranch as a high school freshman with my parents in 1978, I have had a front-row seat from which to view the lengths to which the government would go to drive my parents and so many other ranchers like them out of business.  After winning three administrative appeals against the USFS each costing between $50,000 to $150,000 to defend the government retaliated in 1991 by raiding the ranch with a 40-man Forest Service swat team to impound 104 head of cattle. It then sold the cattle and kept the proceeds. The USFS perpetrated the raid based upon false allegations of overgrazing without providing us the constitutional protections of procedural due process of law before the cattle and our livelihood were stolen. Two massive civil cases the 1991 Constitutional Fifth Amendment Takings Case of Hage v. U.S. and the 2007 trespass case, U.S. v. Hage were born out of my family having to defend our constitutionally protected property rights in court on a ranch which was otherwise rendered worthless by the government’s actions.

Since 1991, we have slogged through nearly three months of actual court days in several separate bench trials, a jury trial, state water adjudication and contempt hearing against the government, the testimony of numerous witnesses, and review of thousands of exhibits. Two independent federal judges from two separate jurisdictions separated by more than a decade of time, after lengthy trials with actual evidence, concluded that representatives of the United States from the BLM and the USFS acted in coercive, fraudulent manners towards my family.  Judge Loren A. Smith, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, after two bifurcated bench trials in a 20-year-long case, with a total of five weeks of trial where actual evidence was presented concerning the manner in which these agents of the U.S. government abused their discretion and power against the Hage family, concluded that any attempt by the Hages to negotiate or attempt to comply with the demands of these agents and their bureaucracies would be futile. Smith ruled in favor of the Hages finding that the actions of these agents constituted a pattern and practice designed to deprive the Hage family of its vested water rights, 1866 Act ditch rights-of-ways, and range improvements which resulted in a judgment for the Hages of over $14 million.

The government appealed. After a 30- minute hearing in the appellate court, three judges determined that had the Hages filed a request for a special-use permit the Forest Service would have granted it, and since the Hages did not file such a request, the case was not ripe, and therefore dismissed. This despite the fact that there was no requirement to file for a special-use permit, and despite the fact that Judge Smith specifically found that any attempt by the Hage family to work cooperatively with USFS or BLM agents would be futile. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court did not grant certiorari on this matter, leaving the Hages without a remedy.  Judge Robert C. Jones, chief judge of the Federal District Court for the District of Nevada, after a four-week civil trial, with careful consideration of over 21 days of testimony and evidence, and an additional four days of a separate contempt-of-court hearing, determined that the representatives of the USFS and BLM acted in a manner specifically to conspire to deprive the Hage family of its vested property rights, in particular stock-water and grazing preferences, as Judge Smith had previously found in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Jones specifically found that the conduct of these bureaucrats “shocked the conscience” of the court.

The court also named the Department of Justice attorneys as possibly being a part of that conspiracy. Judge Jones found evidence of fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud on the part of the federal agents and of racketeering or RICO. He specifically charged several of the USFS and BLM representatives with contempt of court and ruled in favor of the defendant, Wayne Hage Jr., and the Estate of Wayne and Jean Hage. Finally, the BLM and USFS, which had arbitrarily cancelled the Hages’ grazing permits in the early 1990s, were ordered by the court to reinstate the Hage Estate’s grazing permits.  After a 40-minute hearing in the 9th Circuit, the three-judge panel determined that no lucid judge would have made these findings absent some bias or prejudice against the government. This despite the fact that the findings made by Judge Jones in Nevada, after independent consideration of overwhelming evidence, made virtually identical findings to those previously made by Judge Smith in Washington, D.C.  As a result of the court’s disbelief that representatives of the government would act consistent with the findings of Judge Jones, the 9th Circuit reversed Jones’ decision, remanded the case back to the district court level, and directed Judge Gloria Navarro to rule in favor of the USFS and BLM. This case was also appealed to the Supreme Court, which for the second time did not grant certiorari in the absence of Justice Scalia, again leaving the Hage family without a remedy.

Judge Navarro, a newly Obama-appointed federal district judge from the District of Nevada, was assigned to enter a judgment in favor of the United States against Wayne Hage, as a result of the 9th Circuit’s ruling that Judge Jones was biased and prejudiced against the United States. She dutifully relied on the allegations of representatives of the DOJ regarding damages incurred by defendant Hage. She accepted the government’s allegations without an evidentiary hearing and despite the fact that no evidence concerning the cause or amount of those alleged damages had ever been introduced in any court. This resulted in the United States being awarded a judgment against Wayne Hage Jr. in the amount of nearly $580,000, although the actual amount supported by evidence presented at trial by the government was a mere $15,000. The punitive amount of this judgment is currently on appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.  This same Judge Navarro was the junior judge assigned to the criminal case against the Bundy family and other defendants. Judge Navarro in two separate Bundy defendant trials had, like in the Hage hearing, ruled entirely for the government during the course of those trials, in a manner that was shockingly biased to many court observers. However, last December in the third trial involving Bundy family members, evidence was presented concerning the agents from the Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, BLM and FBI engaging in fraud, misrepresentation of material facts to the court, and collusion against the Bundys.  These agents had concealed over 3,000 pages of exculpatory evidence from the defense team in violation of Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Judge Navarro was presumably left with no choice but to dismiss the Bundys with prejudice, which she did. She specifically noted that the BLM and DOJ engaged in “flagrant misconduct” and “deliberate attempts to mislead and distort the truth.”  In addition to the fact that three different federal judges have specifically found a pattern and practice of inappropriate and even illegal behavior by representatives of the DOJ, BLM, USFS, U.S. Attorney’s Office, and FBI, additional evidence of gross misconduct has recently come to light via a BLM whistleblower. The so-called “Wooten Memo,” written by the BLM’s lead investigator on the Bundy matter, contains many charges against government agents including a chilling reference to a “kill book” which was bragged about by head BLM enforcement officer Dan Love.  The 18-page memo reveals that the pattern and practice of the federal land-management agencies were, by design, intended to violate the constitutional rights and to deprive U.S. citizens such as the Hage and Bundy families of their property. A second Wooten whistle- blower memo was just discovered but it has been ordered to be sealed by the court by Judge Navarro, who continues to refuse to release the 3,000 pages of exculpatory evidence to the defendants in the Bundy trials.

The lengths to which the appellate courts have gone to substitute their own findings of fact for those of the trial judge, or to charge the trial judge with bias in order to avoid ruling on the merits of a case, or to utilize any other legal loophole in order to rule over 90 percent of the time in favor of the federal government is a sheer travesty of justice. The Hage cases are Exhibit A for why ranchers do not believe they have a snowball’s chance in hell to prevail against an all-powerful federal master, no matter how strong the evidence or how many judges agree with them.

As a DOJ attorney said to us during court-ordered settlement talks, they weren’t concerned about Judge Jones’ ruling because “we get everything we want from the 9th Circuit.” DOJ attorneys also informed us at another time that it is “Justice Department policy to get privately owned water into government ownership.”  We unfortunately don’t have congressional investigators combing through court documents, emails and texts, secret warrants or phone taps, etc., in numerous cases where the BLM, USFS, EPA and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, enabled by the Justice Department and FBI, have targeted property owners and other land users for destruction. Dwight and Steven Hammond are currently sitting in jail, charged as domestic terrorists for a backfire that accidentally burned a small piece of adjacent vacant federal land.  LaVoy Finicum was shot and killed by snipers on the side of the road.  Raymond Yowell, the Dann sisters, Ben Colvin, Danny Martinez, Kit Laney, my family, and many others have watched their livestock and livelihoods hauled off by the BLM and USFS in cattle trucks at gunpoint without being afforded procedural due process of law or just compensation.  It is no surprise to us that agents charged with enforcing the law would attempt to prosecute trumped-up charges to topple a duly elected president. Sadly, the evening news looks eerily familiar.

Click the Photo to Watch the Video.

Click the Photo to Watch the Video.

Links-

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/2017/05/eye-of-storm-hage-familys-fight-for.html

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/storm-over-rangelands-wayne-hage/1003501322 

http://www.klamathbasincrisis.org/Grazing/2018/inbattleforamericanwestcowboysarelosing033018.htm 

https://www.bitchute.com/video/rsXwQbXLe6aH/

https://youtu.be/_4K7uCtaCqA

https://www.bitchute.com/video/zwYqCTmYgBgO/

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_17.html

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/p/judge-gloria-navarrodoj-third-times.html

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/2018/01/judge-gloria-navarro-comes-to-her.html

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/2017/02/ethical-violations-and-misconduct-by.html

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/2017/12/blm-whistleblower-larry-wooten-seeks.html

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/2018/04/more-whistle-blower-memos-being.html

https://www.bitchute.com/video/jXn9kiwvdq0I/

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/2017/02/cliven-bundy-last-rancher-standing-as.html 

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/2016/01/study-of-constitution-empowers-harney.html

https://youtu.be/3wdQjWapf-c

https://www.bitchute.com/video/uSwNFj2dTqPa/

https://www.bitchute.com/video/h5D5LVZp33TS/

https://archive.org/details/wayne-hage-american-rancher-in-his-own-words-testmony-of-the-conspiracy

  

Eye Of The Storm ~ The Hage Family's Fight For Liberty

 

Ramona Hage Morrison tells the short version of the Government Conspiracy to confiscate her family's Rights and Property.

 

 

“I find specifically that beginning in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, first, the Forest Service entered into a conspiracy to intentionally deprive the defendants here of their grazing rights, permit rights, preference rights.” CHIEF FEDERAL DISTRICT COURT JUDGE ROBERT C. J ONES , JUNE 6, 2012, U.S. V . T HE E STATE OF E. WAYNE H AGE AND WAYNE N. H AGE The following multi-generational, 35- year Hage family saga chronicles not only unprecedented government abuse of power but also triumph in the face of extraordinary adversity. This is a very personal story of my family’s fight for liberty. While American soldiers have paid the ultimate price for our liberty with their blood, the courtroom is a different type of battle- ground where freedom from a tyrannical government must be vigilantly defended by every generation. And by the grace of God, against all odds, we are prevailing. In order to fully appreciate the enormity of recent rulings of the parallel Hage cases—the 1991 Hage v. U.S. “takings” case in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the 2007 U.S. v. Hage “forage right” case in the Federal District Court of Nevada, and in particular the June 6 preliminary decision by Judge Robert C. Jones—I must first take you back through time to put these decisions into context. 

 

Moving Into the Eye of the Storm In spring 1978, my parents Wayne and Jean Hage, my sisters Ruth, Margaret and Laura, brother Wayne and I moved from a ranch in the lush Sierra Valley of Northern California to Pine Creek Ranch, headquartered 60 miles north of Tonopah, Nev. My father had long dreamed of owning an “open range” ranch similar to ones he had worked on as a young man in northeastern Nevada and on the southern Idaho Owyhee Desert. Having harvested hay with mowing machines pulled by draft horses, and then pitching the same hay to cattle all winter, he sought the kind of ranch wherein only the milk cow and the saddle horses needed feeding through the winter. Such was Pine Creek Ranch. Cattle summered on meadows on the 12,00 0-foot Mount Jefferson and 11,000-foot Table Mountain. During the fall, they migrated south down Monitor Valley to winter on the rich browse and desert grasses in Ralston Valley. Best of all, cattle work was accomplished almost entirely on horseback. The ranch was stocked with beefmaster cattle bred to climb mountains, travel longer distances from water in the desert, and deliver their calves without assistance. For a young girl who routinely ditched 4-H sewing lessons in order to do anything on horseback, Pine Creek was a dream come true. That was before we became acquainted with the U.S. Forest Service (FS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM). 

 

The Conspiracy ~ While Dad had been told by the previous owners of Pine Creek that the BLM and FS were becoming increasingly difficult to work with, he confidently believed, based upon past experience, that he was more than capable of cooperating with the local bureaucrats. But this notion quickly changed that first year when the forest ranger issued a mandatory five-day notice to move cattle while we attended my grandmother’s funeral in Elko. He refused our request for an extension. Mom and Dad worked endlessly to comply with the ever-changing terms and conditions of permits, to keep cattle numbers within permitted limits, and to move on and off allotments at designated times.

EYE OF THE STORM ~ They didn’t play fast and loose with the grazing regulations. In fact, in order to document that they weren’t overgrazing, for years they hired Al Steninger, a range consultant and former BLM employee who flew his twin-engine plane to Pine Creek to conduct range studies. His voluminous reports became evidence in three administrative appeals, all of which we won, but which ultimately provided no real remedy for the conflict. Mom and Dad spent hundreds of thousands of dollars documenting our proper range management and defending administrative appeals of onerous agency decisions. Ranch profits hemorrhaged accordingly. Government harassment became intense. In one 105-day grazing season my parents were visited 70 times, usually by an armed employee, and received an additional 40 certified letters containing various citations and notices. One such five-day notice demanded we replace one missing fence staple on Table Mountain which could only be reached by a 20-mile horseback ride. Finally, in 1991, the Forest Service, in what might be characterized as a set-up, cut the Meadow Canyon Allotment first by 35 percent, and then 100 percent for five years, allegedly to allow the range to “recover.” In fact, it was a clear attempt to force us to abandon our water rights. The statutory requirement for abandonment of a water right is five years of no-nuse. That allotment shared 25 miles of unfenced boundary with our Monitor Valley Allotment, managed by the BLM. Native cattle that, like salmon, were used to returning to the same mountain pastures every summer were repeatedly moved off the allotment by us. Even though my brother Wayne Jr. and our employees rode every other day to keep cattle from trespassing, FS ranger Dave Greider orchestrated two armed raids and confiscated over 100 head of cattle. Those cattle were subsequently sold at private auction and the proceeds kept to pay for their extravagant paramilitary actions. The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, “No person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Mom and Dad were never afforded the constitutional protection of due process of law before their livelihood was hauled away in cattle trucks. Rapists and murderers, as a matter of law, receive more due process than my parents did as law-abiding, taxpaying citizens of the United States. The ranch’s 2,000 remaining cows were quickly gathered and sold at fire-sale prices to prevent further theft by the Forest Service. The ranch was for all practical purposes shut down. The most heartbreaking image I have from that period is of the two-foot-tall weeds growing in the corrals across from the ranch house. The question then became, do we own property in the nature of vested and certificated water rights, easements, right-of-ways, forage and improvements on our range allotments, or are we merely serfs, grazing by permission of the U.S. government? These are rights which Dad documented in hisbook, “Storm OverRangelands” (1989), but which, until recently, ranchers and attorneys viewed with great skepticism as being something that could be defended in court. Nonetheless, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered eight copies of the book for its law library. Mom and Dad decided to put that question before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (USCFC) in Washington, D.C., in a Fifth Amendment taking of property case in 1991, Hage v. U.S. Court, Court, and More Court The Hage rulings are the result of an incredible amount of litigation on the part of one family—not a corporation, not a state or federal agency—attempting to defend their constitutionally guaranteed property rights. Four months after filing the landmark Hage v. U.S. “takings” case in 1991, my father Wayne Sr. was indicted for maintaining his 1866 Mining Act ditch right-of-ways. A week-long criminal trial ensued with Nevada Federal District Court Judge Howard McKibbon presiding. Dad was convicted of destruction of government property totaling less than $100. He was then subjected to drug testing, house arrest, and searches by a federal probation officer. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that appalling conviction.  In 1997, a two-week water adjudication for the Southern Monitor Valley was conducted at Dad’s request. He successfully defended Pine Creek’s vested and certificated water rights against the FS attempt to claim- jump the same waters. The state engineer’s ruling was upheld by the 5th Judicial District Court of Nevada. The USCFC takings case finally went to trial in 1998. Chief Judge Loren E. Smith first presided over a two-week trial to determine the property interests belonging to Pine Creek Ranch. In 2004, a second three-week trial was commenced to determine which property had been taken and its value. The family was ultimately awarded a $14 million judgment. In total, Judge Smith issued an unprecedented eight published decisions. Those trials occurred during my father’s lifetime. My mother Jean suffered a fatal stroke during surgery in 1996 at age 54, attributable to the enormous stress under which she had lived since we bought the ranch. Based on her title research of Pine Creek, she believed that we owned property interests in our grazing allotments, and was determined to protect those rights for the next generation for her five children. So far, the courts have agreed with her. 

 

In 1999, Dad married Idaho Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth, who fully backed my father in his epic battle with the U.S. government. Dad passed away from cancer at 69 in 2006 , and Helen died tragically in a car crash four months later on their seventh wedding anniversary. My generation’s battle began a year later when the USFS and BLM filed a Federal District Court lawsuit in 2007, U.S. v. Estate of E. Wayne Hage and Wayne N. Hage, attempting to gain an adverse ruling to undermine the USCFC takings case. They alleged we were trespassing on government- managed lands. A 22-day trial spanned from March 27 to June 6 of 2013 with Chief Judge Robert C. Jones presiding. Wayne Jr., a rancher representing himself prose, attorney Mark Pollot, and myself as paralegal were up against a team of three Department of Justice attorneys, agency attorneys, paralegals and their staffs. Instead of its intended result, the forage right trial resulted in, among other things, Judge Jones finding criminal and civil contempt of court and obstruction of justice against BLM and FS Wayne Jr.  He ordered a civil show-cause hearing for the last week of August. During the trial in Reno, we recessed to travel to Washington, D.C., to attend a 30- minute appeal hearing April 2 before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in the now 22-year-old takings case of Hage v. U.S.  Its decision was issued July 26, and will be discussed below. The 13 trial weeks and multiple court rulings in which we prevailed do not count previous administrative appeals, all of which we won, but received no relief from bureaucratic harassment.  It doesn’t count the 100-plus depositions of bureaucrats and experts, motion and status hearings, writing or reviewing briefs, document production, and trial preparation.  In preparation for our forage right trial this spring, unable to afford a legal staff, we copied 30 of the 50 case file boxes from the USCFC takings case. We also sent 47,000 pages of production documents to the government and prepared 1,230 trial exhibits, including 501 ranch title exhibits. Wayne Jr. has carried on where Dad left off. While he manages Dad’s estate as executor, he is also in charge of the estate’s litigation, pursuant to Dad’s instructions before his death. Running the ranch since graduating from Hillsdale College, Wayne worked closely with my father developing long-term plans for the ranch and litigation.

 

 

Judge Jones Makes Historical Ruling Protecting Rangeland Grazing ~ For more than a century the courts have wrestled with the issue of livestock grazing on federally managed lands, mostly to the detriment of the western rancher. Most of the adverse case law, however, is the result of rulings from cases which were lost procedurally. They never went to trial where actual evidence was heard. The Hage cases are unique and the only ones in 100 years where 501 title exhibits were brought before the court proving our preexisting rights to use the range and waters. The evidence establishing our rights was created under local laws and customs and court rulings beginning in the 1860s, long before the creation of either the BLM or USFS. Those rights were preserved in every land law passed by Congress, including the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act and the omnibus 1976 Federal Land Policy & Management Act. In his June 6 preliminary ruling in the forage right case, U.S. v. Hage, Judge Jones set the stage for his historic decision for western ranchers.  In an unprecedented use of court time, he spent three hours reading into the record the published decisions from the USCFC takings case and adopting Judge Smith’s findings as his own. He explained to the packed courtroom: “You’ll have to have patience and listen for quite a while for the following reason. Most of this case has already been resolved by prior litigation, so I am doing that both for the purpose of adopting Judge Smith’s findings and conclusions, which I am bound to, as well as making it clear what things Judge Smith ruled upon and what few remaining items I have to rule upon. So you will bear with me while we undertake that. I understand from a lay- man’s perspective a lot of this will be sleeping material. Not so to the attorneys. They will understand and the appellate court will understand clearly what Judge Smith resolved and, therefore, what’s left for me to resolve, and the basis of the legal rulings on which I predicate findings and further legal conclusions.” For the first time in history a court has protected the historical property interests ranchers own on western rangelands. It did so in two ways. First, the court found that both constitutional Fifth Amendment substantive due process and procedural due process rights attach to grazing preferences. The judge explained during trial that Congress intended to protect ranchers’ preexisting rights by issuing grazing preferences only to the established ranchers who could prove historical use of the range and ownership of water rights under local law and custom. The finding of a substantive due process right to grazing preferences in practical terms greatly limits the government’s ability to simply take grazing permits as it did in our case, or even The northern winter range in the Ralston Valley from the Silver Creek drainage.  And perhaps most importantly, it prevents the government from using the administrative appeals process as a weapon to tie ranchers up in endless futile appeals. Second, Judge Jones found that based on evidence presented at trial, we had a half- mile forage right around and adjacent to all of our waters, attendant to our stock watering rights. Livestock could not be found in trespass in those areas. Addressing the government’s case alleging trespass of livestock on federally managed lands, Judge Jones found the cattle belonging to Wayne, or leased by him, not to be in trespass. Most of the trespass allegations were determined to be near or at the waters belonging to the Hage estate, and the government’s method of documenting the allegations were deemed unreliable. At one point forest ranger Steve Williams suggested the only way we could access our stock-waters without being deemed to be in trespass by him was to lower cows to our water by helicopter. Going forward, the court placed my family under the permanent injunctive relief of this court, similar to the civil rights busing cases. Wayne was ordered to immediately apply for grazing permits and the government was ordered to issue permits at the highest historical numbers of our predecessors. 

 

Judge Jones said he did not trust the BLM and FS to act within their discretion. Therefore, grazing permit levels can only be cut up to 25 percent for legitimate management purposes such as drought, and never permanently. But court approval must be sought for cuts over 25 percent, or to issue trespass or impoundment notices. We can now ranch unmolested for the first time in 35 years. Government’s Attempt to End-Run Hage v. U.S. Turns Into Justice Department Train Wreck The advantage of 22 years of successful litigation is that it functions as a judicial hedge of protection from bureaucrats seeking revenge through the courts. The mistake made by both the USFS and BLM and their legal counsel is that they repeatedly ignored eight published decisions from USCFC, the water decree, and criminal case—a fact not lost on Judge Jones. While bureaucrats and their attorneys live off the taxpayer and China, using government money to plot the eradication of western ranchers, in this case they seem to have been caught in a web of their own making. During the five-year U.S. v. Hage forage right case, a counterclaim was filed by Mark Pollot for the estate which alleged the United States, through its agencies, agents, departments and employees, infringed upon and deprived the estate of its constitutionally protected property and other rights. Based on evidence at trial, the court found: “[S]ome- time in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the Forest Service first and then BLM entered into a conspiracy, a literal, intentional conspiracy, to deprive the Hage's of not only their permit grazing rights, for whatever reason, but also to deprive them of their vested property rights under the takings clause, and I find that that’s a sufficient basis to hold that there is irreparable harm.” Judge Jones added: “For hundreds of thousands of dollars they purchased the ranch with recognized value in the forage rights, let alone the water rights, and at some point in time during that period the Forest Service.  I don’t know, maybe it was for their private use so that they would have a private domain of the forester.... But the intent to deprive them of their preference is abhorrent and shocks the conscience of the court and constitutes a basis for an irreparable harm finding.” He then referred BLM manager Tom Seley and forest ranger Steve Williams to the U.S. Attorney, “for potential consideration for prosecution for the conspiracy,” requiring the U.S. Attorney’s office to report back in six months as to any action it’s taken.  He also gave Seley and Williams notice to appear for a show-cause hearing for civil contempt of court. The first act the court recognized as constituting irreparable harm consisted of the “arrest and attempted conviction of Mr. Hage for practicing his property interest right recognized by the Court of Claims.” Judge Jones added, “These folks have heard from three federal courts, and in spite of that they have continued an attempt to deprive the Hage's of their permit rights and their water rights.” The four grounds for irreparable harm were: (1) that the BLM and FS sought stock- water rights with the specific intent to “give the water rights belonging to the Hages to others”; (2) they solicited and granted permits to others, namely Gary Snow of Fallon, Nev., and testified they knew Snow’s cattle would use Hage waters; (3) the issuance of trespass notices to third parties whose cattle were under legal possession of Wayne Jr.; and (4) the recent solicitation sent to 75 ranchers for term grazing permit applications for the Hages’ Ralston Allotment. The court specifically mentioned, “ Snow is probably part of the conspiracy, but certainly the agency principals...and probably the U.S. Attorney out of Washington advising them was probably part of the conspiracy.” The judge emphasized: “Especially the collection from innocent others of thousands of dollars for trespass notices is abhorrent to the court, and I express on the record my offense of my own conscience in that conduct. That’s not just simply following the law and pursuing your management right, it evidences an actual intent to destroy their water rights, to get them off the public lands.” The judge made a finding of RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations], or “racketeering,” noting that RICO doesn’t have to benefit the participant but that it can be for the benefit of the enterprise. He said: “But you still have entered into a conspiracy for RICO purposes. And it certainly was in violation of mail fraud and fraud provisions to the contrary.” Finally, as if the Justice Department wasn’t having enough troubles of its own making, on June 6 the judge revoked automatic admission status to all Washington, D.C.- based Justice Department attorneys. He told the packed courtroom he had been “turned around” in four cases including ours and they would not be readmitted into his court- room unless they could prove in a hearing that they could follow the rules of ethics and local rules of the court. 

 

Hage “Takings” Case Suffers Narrow Setback at Fed Circuit ~ On July 26 , the three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its decision in the 22-year-old Hage v. U.S. takings case. Most of the findings by Judge Smith regarding the Hage property interests were not overturned, including a finding of a physical taking of waters in the ditches.  As Judge Jones observed, the three-judge panel expressly said the Hage's have “an access right” to their waters . Finally, the portion of the takings judgment that was overturned was on the basis that the claims were not ripe, not because the government was acting correctly. We have filed a petition for rehearing enbanc before the full Federal Circuit panel and have already determined to pursue a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court should we not receive satisfaction at the Federal Circuit. 

 

Agency Brass Defend Agency Actions Leading to Contempt of Court ~ On Friday, August 31, a separate week-long show-cause hearing ended with Judge Jones finding Tonopah BLM manager Tom Seley and Humboldt-Toiyabe forest ranger Steve Williams in contempt of court. The con- tempt, including witness intimidation, occurred during the pendency of the five- year-old forage right case mentioned above. Seley was specifically found having intent to destroy the Hages’ property and business interests. “Mr. Seley can no longer be an administrator in this BLM district.  I don’t trust him to be unbiased. Nor can he supervise anybody in this district,” the judge stated in his order from the bench. The contempt finding was the result of the FS and BLM having filed the 2007 suit against Wayne Jr. and the estate of E. Wayne Hage, but also see king alternative remedies while the case was pending in derogation of the court’s jurisdiction. The court noted : “You got a random draw of a judge. You submitted to this civil process.” Then Seley and Williams pursued their own remedies by trying to extort money out of third-party ranchers who had leased cattle to Wayne Jr. They issued trespass notices, demands for payments, their own judgments, and in one instance coerced a $15,000 settlement. All of this was done during the time the court had jurisdiction over these issues. The hearing began Monday, August 27, with a cadre of agency heads from Washington, D.C., regional and state offices turning up at the Reno courthouse to defend their policies and employees. After intense questioning by the court, Judge Jones made witness credibility findings in which FS Region 4 Director Harv Forsgren was found lying to the court.   In his bench ruling, Judge Jones stated: “The most persuasive testimony of anybody was Mr. Forsgren.  I asked him, has there been a decline in AUMs [animal unit months/live- stock numbers] in the West.  Then I asked him, has there been a decline in the region, or this district.  He said he doesn’t know.  He was prevaricating.  His answer speaks volumes about his intent and his directives to Mr. Williams.” The court noted that anybody who is school age or older knows “the history of the Forest Service in seeking reductions in AUMs and even an elimination of cattle grazing during the last four decades. Not so much with the BLM—they have learned that in the last two decades.”  In his findings of witness intimidation, Judge Jones noted: “Their threats were not idle. They threatened one witness’ father’s [grazing] allotment.” The judge referenced testimony wherein Steve Williams delivered trespass notices accompanied by an armed employee.  In one instance the armed man snuck up behind one of the witnesses with his hands ready to draw his guns. “Packing a gun shows intent,” the court noted. Seley and Williams were held personally liable for damages totaling over $33,000 should the BLM and FS fail to fund the losses to Hage and third parties. In addition, Judge Jones imposed an injunction wherein the BLM and FS are prevented from interfering with third-party leasing relationships when the livestock are in the clear operational control of Wayne Jr. 

 

The Next Steps ~ The government is expected to appeal the Jones decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where it assumes it will face a more favorable court. In the meantime, the criminal investigation is ongoing. The Hage family will be considering further legal actions as a result of the conspiracy findings of the court.  It is likely these two conflicting cases, Hage v. U.S. and U.S. v. Hage, are headed for the U.S. Supreme Court. My mother and father’s dream of seeing the property rights protected for the next generation paved the way for the landmark court decisions we have today.  However, never during all those weeks in court did we anticipate the tables would be so dramatically turned as they were in the forage right trial this spring.  

 

In 1991, Dad was charged criminally by the FS for lawfully maintaining his ditch right-of-way. In 2012, on day 19 of the trial, the government began its cross- examination of Danny Berg, a rancher who had leased cattle to Wayne Jr. Evidence was presented in a letter from Tom Seley where Mr. Berg’s father had been threatened that his allotment would be affected if Danny didn’t immediately remove his cattle from Pine Creek.  The judge’s reaction says it all: “So the threat in the prior letter is an abomination, and the threat here is an abomination, and especially tying it to a threat against the father’s allotment is a total twice abomination.... And Mr. Seley will stand before this court for contempt with his checkbook in hand and potentially, as I give judgment, and potentially risk imprisonment as well. That’s the clear notice.  He’ll need to hire a criminal attorney.” 

 

Update January 15, 2016 ~ Court Ruling Overturned In Hage Grazing Case.

A federal appeals court on Jan. 15, sided with the government in a decades-long Nevada grazing rights case. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling from 2013 that found in favor of Tonopah, NV, ranchers E. Wayne Hage and his son, Wayne N. Hage, who are accused of grazing cattle on federal land without a permit. The senior Hage died in 2006 and his son is now defending the case.

The federal appeals court vacated and reversed portions of the lower court ruling, and, in referring the case back for consideration, in a rare move called for a different district judge, saying Judge Robert Clive Jones had displayed bias against the federal government and grossly abused his contempt power. Jones found Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service employees in contempt of court for the way they handled the case against the Hage's.

While the Hage's did not hold grazing permits, they did have water rights, which they argued provided an easement to access the water. The lower court concluded because it is not feasible to prevent cattle from eating or wandering, the government cannot succeed on a trespass claim if the cattle remain within a reasonable distance of the water source to which the defendants possess water rights. Jones ruled a “reasonable” distance to be one half-mile.

Jones found that although the cattle had grazed on federal land, the government had proved only two of its many claims because the unauthorized grazing occurred within a half-mile of the water source. The judges in the Ninth Circuit Court, based in San Francisco, disagreed and said cattle can’t incidentally graze on public land when accessing a rancher’s private water right on federal property.

The defendants argued that, because they had water rights, a necessary easement over federal lands to get their cattle to the water was implied. However, that argument conflicts with a longstanding precedent, the opinion says. The appeals court ruled that ownership of water rights does not give a rancher the right to graze livestock on federal property, though he can divert water from a stream on such land.

In writing the recent opinion, Circuit Court Judge Susan Graber wrote, “Defendants openly trespassed on federal lands. Rather than simply resolving the fact specific inquiries as to when and where the cattle grazed illegally, the district court applied an ‘easement by necessity’ theory that plainly contravenes the law.” The opinion continued, “The district court also encouraged defendants to file a counterclaim that was clearly time-barred. … Moreover, as discussed more fully in a separate disposition filed today, the court grossly abused the power of contempt by holding two federal agency officials in contempt of court for taking ordinary, lawful actions that had no effect whatsoever on this case.”

The Hage's have been embroiled in arguments with the government over grazing issues for decades. Following the decision, The Las Vegas Review-Journal quoted Hage saying the ruling is, “a big disappointment, not just for my family but for the entire industry.”

Mark Pollot, attorney for the Hage’s estate, told WLJ, in looking at the next step, they have three options: Accept the decision; petition for rehearing enbanc from the Ninth Circuit; or immediately file a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court. He indicated their choice would be one of the last two options.

“We believe that the decision in both the contempt matter and the main case are legally and factually in error and, if allowed to stand, will drive a stake through western water law and other infrastructure that grew out of well more than a century of congressional and judicial actions.”

Pollot said, “Any control over water that remains in the states west of the Mississippi River will be illusory.”

 

Watch this Documentary of Wayne Hage American Rancher

Click the Photo to Watch the Video.

 

Wayne Hage's daughter Ramona Hage Morrison speaks at the National Press Club after the Stand Up at Bundy Ranch.

 

 

Learn More About Property Rights and the Conspiracy of Government Agencies To Usurp Private Property Rights.

 

End The BLM Petition

 

 

UPDATE -

Wayne Hage Jr. was in attendance at the Range Rights & Resource Symposium and spoke at the podium April 20, 2018.  I reported on the ongoing battle their family has been fighting against the Federal Government and its agencies since 1992.  He told the attendees, "the note has come due, and we are losing our ranch".  It is a very sad day in America when the government can use our tax dollars to deploy their lawless tactics known as regulation and "the rule of law" to attack the American People.  These men and women employed by the DOJ, USFW, BLM, NPS etc. become the victors of the spoils when THEY are allowed to Appeal cases won by The People.  The "Right" to Appeal should only be available to The People NOT the government!  The government has an endless supply of our tax dollars at their disposal and scores of Attorneys and countless hours to make their case against Americans.  If they can't get it done the first time they should not be allowed a second chance!  The Hage Family saw victory in their case and was awarded a settlement that helped recoup some of their losses, but the government Appealed and got the settlement overturned in 2016 and sought an Appeal and continue to drag them into court trying to steel their land and resources the Hage's purchased with their hard earned dollars!  It seems that the Federal Government and it's Agencies are victorious in "getting the job done" since the ranch is no longer in the Hage's possession.

 

I hope you'll listen to Wayne Hage Jr.'s remarks and take a listen to the court proceedings of April 13, 2018 he recommends in the Q & A portion of the video.  I have links to both below.  We must stand and fight for the American way of life as it's being lost forever!

 

Click the Photo to Watch the Video.

 

 

Click the Photo to Watch the Video.

 

Click the Photo to Watch the Video by WSJ.

 

Property Rights Explained - Ammon Bundy 2021 Kanab Utah
Click the Photo to Watch the Video.

Click the Photo to Watch the Video.

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Links -

https://youtu.be/-xzZZDpy1Gw

http://www.westernrangeservice.com/al-steninger-1.html 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0939571153/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0939571153&linkCode=as2&tag=teapartymedia-20

http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/SMITH.HAGE110309A.pdf

https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/nevada/nvdce/2:2007cv01154/55973/235/0.pdf?ts=1376995974

https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/nevada/nvdce/2:2007cv01154/55973/235/

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/nevada/nvdce/2:2007cv01154/55973/254/

https://thewesterner.blogspot.com/2013/06/hage-back-to-claims-court.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Chenoweth-Hage

https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/nevada/nvdce/2:2007cv01154/55973/235/

https://youtu.be/genvVsqMxvY

http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/Hage.pdf

https://www.justice.gov/usam/usam-9-110000-organized-crime-and-racketeering

http://www.rangemagazine.com/specialreports/range-su13-hage-petition.pdf

http://www.amlands.org/media/DIR_113534/1625486491aa0fa9ffff801fffffe906.pdf

https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZA0bPHtGfpHM/

https://youtu.be/HH_qglwcXRc

https://www.thepetitionsite.com/426/005/762/dissolve-the-blm-bureau-of-land-management./ 

https://agenda21truth.blogspot.com/2018/04/farmers-feed-world-range-rights.html

https://www.bitchute.com/video/jReSCxfXf3YC/

https://www.bitchute.com/video/zwYqCTmYgBgO/ 

https://www.bitchute.com/video/rsXwQbXLe6aH/

https://www.wsj.com/video/the-last-cowboy-at-pine-creek-ranch/448D091F-7C62-423D-99EF-DFE3DD784EB7.html 

https://www.bitchute.com/video/10eYbJOFz1b5/

https://www.bitchute.com/video/h5D5LVZp33TS/

https://archive.org/details/wayne-hage-american-rancher-in-his-own-words-testmony-of-the-conspiracy