The Agriculture Department has launched a new effort to help farmers and ranchers who have been targeted by "unfair and politically motivated lawfare" allegedly carried out by the Biden administration.
The announcement came at a press conference at USDA Thursday where Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins and other officials and lawmakers celebrated the dropping of criminal charges against a South Dakota ranch family that grew out of a dispute over 25 acres of land.
“For all American farmers, ranchers and producers who were subject to the similar egregious lawfare from the Biden administration, we will work with our counterparts, including my great colleague, [Homeland Security] Secretary Kristi Noem and others across the Trump government, to address any other government overreach in situations like this,” Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins said at the press conference.
The department’s website now includes a “lawfare complaint form” that farmers and ranchers can use to inform USDA of situations involving alleged government overreach.
The government dropped criminal charges Monday against Charles and Heather Maude, small ranchers and farmers who four years ago were informed by the Forest Service that a fence on their land was blocking access to the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands.
Speakers at the press conference. From left to right: Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo.; Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.; The Maude Family; Department of Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem; South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden; and Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.Speakers at the press conference, who also included Noem, the Maudes and their attorney, Brett Tolman, and state and federal lawmakers, said the Maudes cooperated with the federal government but still had criminal charges brought against them.
“We are ending regulation by prosecution in America and investigating how and why this wrongful prosecution of an American ranching family ever occurred in the first place,” Rollins said.
The Maudes farm about 400 acres near Mount Rushmore, where they raise about 250 head of cattle and about 40 sows, Rollins said.
“The Forest Service allowed them an informal agreement for their cattle to graze for decades, and the family assumed that a process was underway to clearly survey and establish the boundaries,” she said. “But that didn't happen. The Biden administration criminally charged the Maude family for theft of government property.”
“For years now, they have endured a torturous legal process and suffered as victims of the Biden regime's reckless lawfare,” she said.
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The Forest Service said it was following "normal operating procedures' in elevating the matter to the Justice Department after failing to resolve it administratively, according to a report in the Capital Press in August. The service told the news outlet that the matter involved not simply a fence but an irrigation system had been installed and crops planted on the land.
At Wednesday's press conference, Heather Maude thanked Rollins, acting South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden and Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., among others, as well as farm journalists who first publicized their story. Others at the press conference included Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D.
“We knew that we were innocent of any wrongdoing, and we sought to find a resolution, and that was not forthcoming from the other side,” she said.
One of the Maudes' children speaks at USDA (Lydia Johnson photo)After the press conference, Tolman said he had heard from “sources” that the U.S. attorney’s office in South Dakota is considering bringing civil charges against the Maudes.“We've heard rumors that they want to bring a civil case alleging the same facts,” Tolman said. “We hope that they'll … exercise better judgment and not bring that,” he said. “They still haven't seen all the evidence we have.”
“If they choose to bring a civil case, we're going to not only defend but we're going to expose what has happened over the last 100 years,” Tolman said. “This family has documented and kept all the evidence, and the one thing that is incredibly important is they have been paying for their allotment they receive from the government. They've been paying their full payment, and it covers the area in controversy, and the Forest Service has cashed that check every year.”
The U.S. attorney's office in South Dakota did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Maudes are a fifth-generation farm family. Charles Maude’s family has been farming it since the early 1900s.
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(Lydia Johnson photo)
