Robert Gehrke: A lawsuit may show inner workings of Ammon Bundy’s flourishing extremist group

On Friday night, sheriff’s deputies in Ada County, Idaho, led far-right insurgency ringleader Ammon Bundy out of his son’s football banquet in handcuffs and took him to jail on an outstanding warrant.

The arrest stemmed from Bundy’s refusal to abide by court orders in a defamation trial brought against Bundy by St. Luke’s Hospital and its staff — a trial that ended last month with a jury finding Bundy and his far-right People’s Rights Network liable for $52 million in damages.

But the case may end up being about a lot more than defamatory statements, and give us a look inside the inner workings of Bundy’s flourishing extremist organization.

The episode began when child protection workers temporarily removed a malnourished infant — with a distended stomach and unable to sit upright — from his family’s care so he could be treated at the hospital.

Bundy lied about the incident, calling it a kidnapping and accused the hospital of “child trafficking.” He made other scurrilous attacks against employees and incited his “patriot” followers to protest outside the hospital and at the homes of doctors, nurses, law enforcement and others involved.

In March of this year, the hospital was forced into lockdown as his followers rallied outside. Appointments were canceled and emergency patients were diverted to other hospitals.

This past Friday, attorneys for the hospital filed a suit in Idaho state court accusing Bundy of fraudulently attempting to hide assets to avoid paying his part of the $52 million judgment. On Monday, the judge issued additional sanctions against Bundy for violating court orders. All of this, including the Friday arrest, show the judge in the case isn’t going to play Bundy’s petulant games.

Nor should she. Because the jury’s award is a means to enforce at least some measure of accountability for a person with a long and dubious track record of incendiary, defiant actions — including instigating standoffs with law enforcement at the family’s ranch in Nevada and another at a wildlife refuge in Oregon.

Bundy is only the most recent purveyor of right-wing lies to find himself on the hook for his actions. Last November, a jury found conspiracy-monger Alex Jones liable for a billion dollars for peddling lies about the slaughter at Sandy Hook being staged, forcing Jones to file for bankruptcy.

And in April, Fox News agreed to pay $787 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for repeating patently false claims that the voting machines were programmed to change votes and defeat Trump.

Now Bundy is facing similar consequences.

But the judgment in the Bundy case could accomplish even more, Erik Stidham, the attorney at Holland & Hart who represented St. Luke’s, told me recently. Stidham and his colleagues will now begin the work of collecting the judgment and, in the process, will get to pull back the curtain on the network of right-wing organizations that finance Bundy’s People’s Rights Network and other affiliates.

“This case was not just about Ammon Bundy shutting down a hospital,” Stidham said. “What was involved in this case … is the kind of structure he’s built with the People’s Rights Network. A lot of the case was about how sophisticated and methodical this operation is with regard to its use of the media.”

Bundy’s network formed amid the COVID-19 backlash and has spread nearly as fast as the virus. A report by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights estimated that it consisted of at least 20,000 members, but his site boasts that the organization has 65,000 followers.

He also operates a savvy media operation and affiliates with various militia groups that Stidham said it leveraged to intimidate witnesses in the St. Luke’s case.

According to the IREHR report, Bundy’s network is spread over 16 states, including Utah, and its followers delineate between the “righteous” (themselves, obviously) and the “wicked,” using a blend of racism, anti-semitism and bigotry.

It has stitched together a network of militias and paramilitary organizations that make the group potentially dangerous. In 2021, The Counterterrorism Group, a private entity that tracks terrorist organizations, classified The People’s Right as a domestic terrorist organization that is likely to conduct future armed protests and pose a risk to security.

It’s possible, of course, that this escalation surrounding the defamation case is what Bundy wants. “He’s falsely playing the martyr … trying to prime his followers for a stand-off,” Stidham said.

Ammon Bundy is indeed dangerous, but he is not above the law.

That’s why it’s important that this St. Luke’s defamation case moves forward — because at its core it is a mechanism for the hospital to see justice done. Beyond that, though, it could pull back the curtain on the inner workings of a sophisticated right-wing militia group and just maybe help smash it to pieces.

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