SPARKS, Nev. (AP) — Southern Nevada rancher and state's rights activist Cliven Bundy says a U.S. judge in Las Vegas did the federal government a favor last month when she threw out his criminal case stemming from an armed standoff at his Bunkerville ranch in April 2014.
Bundy told a gathering of the Independent American Party of Nevada's state convention in Sparks Friday night that he would have preferred the trial to continue because he knows he would have been acquitted of any crimes.
He says Judge Gloria Navarro saved federal prosecutors from further embarrassment. He says it would have been "a great thing" if it had been left to the jury to find him innocent because that would have set an important precedent across the country.
Bundy says he doesn't have any aspirations to run for political office. He says he's backing Nevada's Independent American Party because neither Republicans nor Democrats truly represent American citizens.