Ammon Bundy makes veiled threats while in hiding after $52m defamation ruling

After fleeing the state and failing to appear in court as part of a long-running defamation case against him, far-right activist Ammon Bundy posted a rambling 12-minute video to rage against Idaho officials he blames for a $52m verdict against him and his associates.

Bundy, the anti-government militant who staged standoffs with federal law enforcement in 2014 and 2016, was accused of launching a smear campaign against officials and staff at an Idaho hospital system by telling his supporters to protest their homes and workplaces.

In his first public statements about the case in weeks, he delivered a thinly veiled threat against the “wicked” “thieves” he claims are engaged in a conspiracy against him.

“I’m doing everything I can not to just retaliate against these people,” he said. “I have been so peaceful. And they keep pushing me, and pushing me, and pushing me, you know, wanting me to do something so that they can arrest me and put me in prison or kill me. That’s what they’re trying to do.”

He added: “All those people [who] said ‘don’t do anything to these people… it’s not right to retaliate.’ I’m almost ready to say, ‘You know what? The hell with it.’”

St Luke’s Health Systems sued Bundy after he staged protests and falsely accused the state’s largest hospital network of kidnapping the grandson of one of his associates and running a “child trafficking ring”.

Armed protesters tried to force their way into the hospital, blocked ambulance entrances and held up “wanted” signs targeting individual doctors and nurses, according to court documents.

In August, a jury ruled Bundy must pay the plaintiffs $6.2m in compensatory damages and $6.15m in punitive damages, while Diego Rodriguez was ordered to pay $7m compensatory damages and $6.5m in punitive damages. The remainder of the verdict was ordered to come from Bundy-affiliated People’s Rights Network, Freedom Man Press, and his failed campaign for Idaho governor.

But lawyers for St Luke’s told the court that Bundy continued to attack the hospital despite a court order to remove 18 months’ worth of false statements from the internet.

Bundy had largely disappeared after he was arrested at his son’s high school football fundraiser on contempt of court charges for his ongoing refusal to attend any of the hearings.

Last month, Bundy skipped the opening day of a trial on contempt of court charges. He emailed the judge overseeing the case to tell her that he refuses to appear at any future hearings.

Ada County Judge Nancy Baskin issued an arrest warrant and raised his bail to $250,000. She also revoked his earlier $10,000 bond paid on his first arrest warrant issued by another judge.

In the rambling stream on his YouTube channel on 22 December, Bundy also lashed out at St Luke’s personnel and claimed the hospital system “took all the money” out of his wife’s bank account to collect damages he owes.

He also railed against the plaintiffs who sued him, the bank tellers at his bank, and right-wing allies and the Freedom Movement he claims have failed to support him. “The Freedom Movement want to condemn me for leaving Idaho but the problem is I could not find people who would stand and stop what was happening to my family,” he said.

“This is the situation we’re in: no one will fight for anybody else, that’s why I had to leave Idaho,” he said.