Longtime anti-government figure Ammon Bundy was arrested in Iron County on Wednesday for driving an unregistered vehicle — a requirement he argues violates his “inalienable right” to travel freely.

In protest, Bundy later walked 8 miles down Interstate 15. He told The Tribune that he will not register his vehicle, but will appear in court.

According to a probable cause statement, an Iron County sheriff’s deputy was stationed on southbound I-15 just south of Cedar City when he saw a truck pass by without a license plate.

After stopping the truck, the deputy asked for identification and Bundy provided an expired Idaho driver’s license, according to the statement. Bundy told the deputy he had not registered the truck, and when asked why, Bundy reportedly said, “You can talk to my lawyer.”

“I told Bundy I do not know his lawyer,” the deputy wrote.

Bundy does not dispute the deputy’s account of the traffic stop, acknowledging in a Friday interview with The Tribune that he had been driving an unregistered truck with an expired license.

What Bundy does dispute is the requirement that he register the car at all: “I said, ‘Well, I do have a right to travel. It doesn’t come from you. It comes from God,’” Bundy recalled.

The deputy asked Bundy to get out of the car so it could be impounded, but Bundy refused to do so, according to the statement and Bundy.

“I reached for the handle to open the door and it was locked,” the deputy wrote. “I reached through the open window and opened the door using the interior door handle. … I then told Bundy to get out of the vehicle.”

When Bundy still refused to comply, the deputy wrote, he grabbed Bundy’s left arm while assisting officers grabbed his his right. Bundy, meanwhile, gripped the steering wheel. He was ultimately removed from the truck and placed on the ground. Bundy “held his arms rigid around his body to prevent officers from taking him into custody,” according to the statement.

Bundy was eventually handcuffed.

“They opened the door, drug me out, threw me on the ground and handcuffed me,” Bundy said Friday. “[They] put me in the back of their Iron County vehicle, and then they had a nice little powwow for probably, I don’t know, ten, 15, 20 minutes, while I believe they tried to figure out what they could charge me with.”

Bundy was ultimately charged with interfering with a peace officer, failure to obey an officer, driving without registration and having no valid license. He was booked into the Iron County jail and bailed out soon after, he said, by a family friend.

While being arrested, Bundy said he told the deputy he was infringing on his “right to travel,” and that the deputy responded, “You can walk.”

“So I thought, well, I’ll test this a little bit,” Bundy said.

After picking up his truck from the impound lot, Bundy said he drove to the New Harmony exit where he had been arrested and began walking down I-15.

“I was going to test what he said because I didn’t think it was accurate,” Bundy said. “I believe there’s a statute that you can’t walk [on the freeway], and so I started walking on the freeway.”

Utah law prohibits walking on the freeway except in an emergency, and Bundy said a sheriff’s deputy followed him for some stretch of the walk and stopped him to say he couldn’t walk on the highway. The deputy did not, however, prevent Bundy from walking, he said, and wasn’t “mean or rude.”

Ultimately, Bundy said he ended up walking eight miles on the interstate.

“I finished my walk and got in my truck and drove home,” he said.

Asked whether he would now register his vehicle, Bundy said, “No. I don’t need permission from the government to travel, especially in my own vehicle.”

He said he will appear in court.

“You don’t really get a choice,” he said. “I mean, you can, but, you know, they just drag you into jail.”

“I’ll call, make a date, and I’ll present what I believe is right to the Iron County people,” he added. “We’ll see what they do about it.”

Following his arrest, Bundy drafted an eight-page “Argument for the Preservation of an Inalienable Right,” in which he wrote, “Our forefathers traveled by foot, horseback, wagon, and carriage. Today, we travel by automobile. The means have changed. The right has not. The invention of the automobile did not extinguish our God-given right to travel. Neither did the invention of the license plate.”

Ammon Bundy is the son of Cliven Bundy, who rose to prominence during a 2014 standoff with law enforcement over grazing fees on federal land in Nevada. In 2016, Ammon Bundy led a group that occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, arguing that the federal government was required to turn over public land to the states.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bundy led a group that protested and disrupted the Idaho government’s mitigation efforts. He was arrested multiple times, and a warrant for his arrest in the state remains open after he fled Idaho ahead of his trial in November 2023. He has lived in Utah ever since.

U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy, who currently represents Utah’s 2nd Congressional District and is running for reelection in the newly drawn 3rd Congressional District, is the niece of Cliven Bundy’s wife, Carol Bundy, and the cousin of Ammon Bundy.

The Iron County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment from The Salt Lake Tribune regarding Bundy’s arrest or the open warrant in Idaho.