Napolitano: Bundy Ranch Shows Obama’s ‘Culture of Intimidation’ Across America

‘They are showing up with an army, pointing M-16’s not only at Mr. Bundy and his family members, but at his friends’

NAPOLITANO: "Well, the criticism is valid. It is a culture of intimidation. It's the federal government using grossly excessive force in order to resolve a dispute that you and I as lawyers know and people watching us now should understand -- can be resolved by filing pieces of paper in a courthouse. Instead of filing pieces of paper in a courthouse called a lien, the government says it owes him money and a court order validated that, file a lien on the property and when he pass s away, the government gets to collect; when he sells, the government collects. One of those events must certainly happen, and the government can certainly exist until the money passes to it. Instead, they are showing up with an army pointing M-16s not only at Mr. Bundy and his family members but friends, at people there to protest, to exercise their First Amendment rights, at Fox News and other news entities there trying to take pictures of them. That's what made this so hair-trigger like is the gross unacceptable, unlawful accumulation of firepower there in order to enforce a judicial degree."
KELLY: "It's not the first time we seen this. I mean, Fox News covered the raid on the Gibson guitar facility in Tennessee where we had agents armed with semiautomatic weapons, bulletproof vests storming in over a piece of illegal wood that Gibson was using in the guitars. They were criticized for behavior in in a family owned mine in Alaska. Federal agents raiding that. We've seen heavy-ended tactics in fact in terms of the raids and then we've seen it, you know, at a more broad level with the IRS, the DOJ going after reporters, the NSA spying on us. It's big government run a muck in the eyes of many."
NAPOLITANO: "It's the federal government thinking it is immune from the laws of the land, the laws of civility that govern the rest of us. Even basic principles. There is a vast disconnect not only between the federal government and people like Mr. Bundy. Remember the government is the servant, not the master. That's in the Constitution -- or the Declaration of Independence. That's not a political statement, that is a value judgement in the American system. But the federal government -- look, it's boosting about the fact it destroyed his property. The government is subject to the laws like everyone else. They destroy his property, they have to pay for it, but yet, they think they can be a law to themselves. That's why this particular case is now ground zero, Megyn, for the average American who expects the government to be the servant and federal government that thinks it can push the average American around."
KELLY: "Let me step back a notch because he did not have a law on his side, Cliven Bundy."
NAPOLITANO: "That's right."
KELLY: "He had lost twice in the court of law and what binds us together if not the rule of law? So where did the feds go wrong having the law on their side?"
NAPOLITANO: "That's a great question. The feds blew this. They had a court order from a federal judge that issued a degree against Bundy. The circuit court of appeals upheld that order. If the federal government did this right, none of  this would have happened. But they used such excessive force, such unlawful behavior, so much destruction of the property, the tide turned against him. Public opinion is clearly against him. They had to back down because their behavior was indefensible at the scene. They said you can't protest unless you go three miles away and stand inside a piece of tape."
KELLY: "Right."
NAPOLITANO: "So when the government loses control of the situation because of its own heavy-handedness, whatever court looks at it -- and you know it will go back to court -- to look at it differently, and the government has the losing hand."

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