Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Reuters
Hours after a judge ruled against militia leader Ammon Bundy in his ongoing legal battle with a hospital on Monday, Bundy’s followers received a mass text message summoning them to his Idaho home, which the message claimed was “currently surrounded by law enforcement.”
The house was not, in fact, under siege. But the message stoked ongoing fears of conflict as Bundy, best known for a pair of armed standoffs with authorities, drags his feet through a contentious court case.
Bundy is the leader of the People’s Rights Network (PRN), a right-wing activist hub that boasts of its ability to mobilize members on a moment’s notice via its alert system. While running a doomed gubernatorial campaign in 2022, Bundy led the PRN in a protest of St. Luke’s Hospital in Meridian, Idaho, temporarily putting the facility in lockdown while Bundy trespassed on its property. St. Luke’s later sued Bundy and his associates, accusing them of a defamation campaign that led to death threats against the hospital’s staff. Bundy has been openly uncooperative in the case, skipping court and even threatening charges against people who delivered legal papers to his house.
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