Ammon Bundy to challenge authority of feds to prosecute Oregon standoff defendants

[yellowcanine]

35. Nothing wrong with preliminary motions. Of course not.

Problem is that as far as I can tell, the Bundys want the court to revisit settled law in terms of Federal ownership of land. It IS frivolous in that sense. However they can make the motion. And the judge can reject it, citing the appropriate precedents. There really will be no basis for appeal unless higher courts see a compelling reason to over turn the precedents, which is quite unlikely. I doubt that any federal court would hear the appeal let alone the SCOTUS.

Thing is, at that point, these kinds of arguments are off the table and I am suspicious that the Bundys are unlikely to accept that - they want to turn this into a show trial of Federal government land policy. They should not be permitted to do that. The willingness of the Bundy lawyers to file this kind of motion now makes me wonder if they are skillful enough to navigate between the Bundy fantasies and what the law requires.