The biggest question in the Bundy lawsuit is the fate of the People’s Rights Network | Opinion

The first key question in the trial of Ammon Bundy has already been answered. Because he failed to defend himself against St. Luke’s defamation claims, he is liable.

The only primary question involved in the trial now ongoing is: What damages will he and his co-defendants be held liable for? Those co-defendants include Diego Rodriguez, the grandfather of the child who was taken into custody by child protective services due to malnutrition, Bundy’s gubernatorial campaign, Rodriguez’s publishing company and political action committee, and, most crucially the People’s Rights Network.

The most important question is not: Will Bundy lose everything he owns?

The most important question is: Will this lawsuit shatter the People’s Rights Network?

The People’s Rights Network is an organized network of tens of thousands of far-right activists and militants around the country. It was estimated to be at least 20,000 in a report published by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. In retort, Bundy claimed he had well over 60,000 members in his network, according to the Associated Press.

Whatever the true size of the organization, it has so far succeeded in blocking the execution of an arrest warrant for Bundy.

From the home where he is holed up, Bundy also vowed in a recent letter to the judge that he would not allow his property to be taken after the jury decides on damages.

“I will not allow my property to be taken by force as long as I am alive and free,” he wrote.

“Please do not sanction a war that may end in innocent blood and require others to bring justice upon those who are responsible for shedding it,” he wrote later.

These threats are credible because of the People’s Rights Network, Bundy’s vast network of supporters.

At the same time, some witnesses have dropped out of the case, as the Daily Beast reported, due to fear of what Bundy’s network of supporters might do.

So what happens to this network, which has stopped the wheels of justice in their tracks and given Bundy the kind of kid gloves treatment none of the rest of us could expect if we defied an arrest warrant, matters a lot more than what happens to Bundy’s personal property.

Lawsuits have in the past managed to break militant far-right organizations, most notably in Idaho, the Aryan Nations.

In 1998, Aryan Nations’ members shot at and beat Victoria Keenan and her son after their car backfired near the group’s Hayden Lake compound, as NPR recounted. They sued with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center, winning a $6.3 million judgment.

That suit bankrupted the organization, and its compound was ultimately auctioned off in 2001. The Aryan Nations splintered into factions and disbanded in 2010.

Bundy is not the same sort of person as Richard Butler, the late head of the Aryan Nations. Butler was far more extreme. He commanded a group that, while much smaller, was much more deeply committed and violent.

On the other hand, Butler never got 100,000 votes for governor. Butler never won the endorsement of the campaigning branch of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, the political center of the far-right in Idaho, as Bundy did. Butler never skated past two armed standoffs with the government only to threaten a third.

Could the St. Luke’s lawsuit do to the People’s Rights Network what the Keenans’ suit did to the Aryan Nations?

That’s what you should watch most closely as we await word of how much the jury will award and as efforts are made to collect on that award. Because if the People’s Rights Network continues to exist, so will the spate of lawlessness.

Bundy is a man of little consequence in the greater scheme of things. But the practice of threatening your way into defying the law, and organizing as a group to do it, could be very consequential for Idaho’s future. It has to be stopped.

Bryan Clark is an opinion writer for the Idaho Statesman based in eastern Idaho.