BUNKERVILLE STANDOFF: BUNKERVILLE DEFENDANT INTRODUCED, APPLAUDED AT IDAHO LEGISLATURE

On Tuesday this week (January 16th)  Idaho State Representative Dorothy Moon spoke on the floor of the legislature saying:  "I'd like to introduce Mr. Eric Parker".

And then many legislators began to applaud Parker, who was a defendant in the first and second Bunkerville Standoff trials.  

The jury deadlocked on charges in the first trial and after Parker was removed from the stand as he tried to testify on his own behalf in the second trial, the jury found him not guilty of most of the charges against him with jury said to be 11-1 in favor of his innocence on the rest.

Parker was set to be tried in the third trial where all charges ended up being dismissed but reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors before the trial started.   He pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of not obeying a court order.

Media in Idaho reported the story yesterday (Friday January 19th).

The state legislator (Dorothy Moon) has been a leader in getting a large group of state legislators to write to Attorney General Jeff Sessions raising concerns about the Bunkerville case.

Joining them was Idaho Congressman Raul Labrador.

While these Republicans have raised concerns about the handling of the case,  they did not flat out say the accused were being wronged, only suggested that there "may be" a miscarriage of justice in their letter to Sessions.

Their statements fall short of the truth about this case and do not take the position advocated by Cliven Bundy and other members of the Bundy family regarding federal land control in the West.

People in eastern Idaho bucked the trend in 1964 voting for Barry Goldwater helping him to almost win the state in the face of a landslide looking to the Republicans for help with federal land control just four years after the BLM was formed.

The problem has only worsened and deepened since.