*UPDATED
Following remarks Senate Majority leader Harry Reid made at the University of Nevada, Reno on Monday, the Nevada Democrat told Reno’s KRNV TV his thoughts on the cattle controversy in Gold Butte. “Well, it’s not over. We can’t have an American people that violate the
law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over,” Reid said.
There is no question that there were a lot of things going on down there with breaking the law,” Reid said. “And that is not over yet. We can’t let that continue. So I’m sure it is not the end of it.”
Reid was confronted earlier at UNR during the Q & A time after Reid’s speech about the cattle issue by Kim Kollman a former teacher at Truckee Meadows Community College, The Reno Gazette Journal reported:
Citing Reuters News Service, the Drudge Report and another website, Kollman asked Reid if he was in collusion with his son and the “Communist Chinese” to forcibly remove Bundy from his property to help bring more solar energy to Southern Nevada. Kollman said Reid was “papering over” the question of possible collusion.
Reid replied, “That is an easy question to paper over. Do you know what you just said? Please read something else. And that is how I’m going to respond to that question.”
The crowd applauded Reid. Kollman then asked Reid, “What are you afraid of, sir?” before Kollman was asked by an organizer to sit down, which he did.
Kollman also asked Reid about any current or former Bureau Land Management members on his or his son’s, Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid, staff but Reid cut him off by asking, “What about my son?”
Rory Reid appeared on KSNV’s What’s Your Point with host Jeff Gillan and told Gillan that Bundy should be prosecuted:
“He is not victim and he’s not a hero. He’s been using that he doesn’t own for over 20 years and he didn’t pay. He broke the law. There are hundreds of ranchers throughout Nevada that conduct their profession honorably. There’s thousands of them throughout the country and when they have a dispute with the BLM they try to work it out.
Reid continued, “I think most people care about their reputation and I think he’s been exposed as somebody that has broken the law. The Nevada Cattlemen Association, which is the trade organization that advocates for cattlemen in the state of Nevada–not even they support Cliven Bundy at this point. We believe in a country in which we are subject to laws and you cant just ignore the laws we don’t like. I think clearly if state and local prosecutors look at this more closely, they’re going to find that he broke the law and he should be prosecuted.”
Additionally, Reid was critical of BLM’s inability to conduct a successful operation in Bunkersville saying, “The BLM shouldn’t have started this if they couldn’t develop a plan to finish it successfully. Now I can understand why they suspended the operation–no trespass cow is worth somebody getting hurt, but the first amendment zones they created were ridiculous. They tried to block off too large of a piece of land and they successfully conducted these impoundments in three Nevada counties–Elko, Eureka county in the pastbut they just didn’t conduct this one very well.”
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