Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 1 of 91 .Review of OMD Advisory Board Meeting Recordings from the "OMD" Dropbox Folder 1. Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151011-0MD-AB meeting.mp3" located in the "OMD" folder ofDropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording ofa conference call-style conversation between self­ proclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Gary HUNT, Dennis DICKENSON, Timothy FOLEY and Ryan PAYNE. Throughout the conversation PAYNE said that he was traveling during the call and he intermittently dropped off and returned to the conversation. This recording is approximately I hour, 23 minutes and 47 seconds long. The conversation was centered on organizing OMD. During the conversation the OMD Advisory Board members discussed Jon RITZHEIMER, an operation targeting refugees in the United States, OMD organization and tasks, secure communications, and emerging issues that OMD was considering for potential OMD missions. On several occasions the BUNDY Ranch was mentioned. The following is a review ofthis recording. 2. HUNT, DICKENSON and FOLEY discussed the OMD organization and assigned tasks. OMD and the OMD Advisory Board members discussed the OMD Advisory Board functions. 3. At 0:08:13, HUNT briefed FOLEY on PAYNE's plan for the militia to intervene in the resettling ofrefugees in Missoula, Montana. HUNT said that the plan that he and PAYNE discussed involved detaining, photographing and interviewing all the refugees. HUNT described what he thought would be a thorough interview and discussed holding bacon in front ofthe refugees' faces, but clarified that the plan was to not harm them in any way. The plan would be to make a report and deliver it to the local Sheriff and post it on the Internet. HUNT said that he Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 1 MNWR 0052517 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 later found out that Missoula is not one of the cities accepting refugees. Page 2 of 91 At 0:09:30, PAYNE said that their plan could be shared with militia across the country in places where refugees where intended to settle. 4. At 0:12:45, PAYNE said that he leaves for the BUNDY Ranch the following day with a few guys from his local unit. PAYNE said that Jon RITZHEIMER is supposed to meet with PAYNE at the BUNDY Ranch and he intends to ask RITZHEIMER to j oin him for some upcoming travel. PAYNE discussed a large gathering of people from around the country to occur in November. HUNT said that "Jon" indicated to him that he (Jon RITZHEIMER) would be "out here" in November. The members discussed the individuals traveling with PAYNE and whether they would do applications. HUNT asked PAYNE if everyone traveling "out here" in November would be doing applications. PAYNE said yes, but then said he didn’t know if it was necessary and said that some of the people that would be coming do not intend to affiliate with OMD and their purpose for coming was to plan out the presentation. At 15:58 HUNT said, "Well, there’s going to be some discussions going on here that we would not have on the phone and I would be reluctant to have them unless we have somebody willing to do the application, whether they’re going to be on tier 2, or not." 5. At 0:18:39, PAYNE described a plan for a road trip where he would be giving a presentation. He described the presentation as being based on "The Plan for Restoration of Constitutional Republic" ("The Plan"). PAYNE said that The Plan can be found on Gary’s Outpost of Freedom web site. At 0:18:55 PAYNE described The Plan as a, "Historically backed outline for a...very detailed plan and can be implemented in order to start.., moving things back towards restoring the union into a Constitutional Republic. And... the idea is it includes aspects like Committees of Safety and the implementation of the militia, the cohesion between the Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052518 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 3 of 91 militia and the Committees of Safety and Correspondence, all the different avenues that need to be pursued. Very similar to how the Founders did it with a modern applicability. And so the idea is to go around and give this presentation to...we’ll just call them interested parties...that are closer to the main stream, that have large followings. For instance, the Tea Party would be a good one. Where they are.., active in the political process, they’re petitioning legislatures, they’re lobbying, they’re doing things in order to try to make a change, but it’s totally ineffective. It’ s, naturally, throughout history has show that as a government tyranny they don’t ever return the liberties to the people. And so the Founders took that path of setting up that... parallel government that filled the gap when the government didn’t perform its necessary tasks. And what ultimately led to independence. And so to go around the Union and go to those interested parties and give them a plan that will actually be effective as opposed to...what probably isn’t a waste of time, it’s probably prudent to put the effort in that they’re putting in, but it has to be becoming obvious to them by this point that it’s ineffective. So we just want to plant seeds and then...watch those trees grow, give them some.., support. If they need to call us, I’m sure a ton of contacts are going to be made for it. And we’ll develop the plan further as far as protecting ourselves legally and physically. And that’s the other.., half of this trip, is also to build the second prong of this endeavor, which is defensive mechanisms that will allow the political side to do what it has to do without fearing for their life." 6. The OMD members then discussed the OMD response matrix. PAYNE’s contact with the conference call became intermittent at this point and he dropped from the call. The remaining participant, HUNT, FOLEY and DICKENSON discussed a training area for OMD and FOLEY’s organization, Arizona Border Recon. They then discussed the need for funding and HUNT spoke about funding OMD with an organization called "BTFA." Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052519 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 4 of 91 At 0:33:54, HUNT said that he put a simplified explanation of The Plan in the Dropbox. 8. At 0:34:30, the OMD Advisory Board continued their review of the OMD individual task list. HUNT told the members of the Advisory Board that they recorded meetings would be available on Dropbox. At 0:39:43, PAYNE returned to the conference call. The members of the board discussed an upcoming trip to FOLEY in Arizona and OMD membership. PAYNE spoke about a potential "top tier" OMD member whom he identified as a retired Master Sergeant named WELLS. HUNT spoke about RITZHEIMER. Then HUNT spoke about OMD logistics with respect to equipping and supplying 100 people for 30 days. FOLEY spoke about training and communication. The Advisory Board then discussed OMD communications, encryption capabilities, code words and standard operating procedures for OMD’s communications for approximately 25 minutes. 9. At 1:05:38, HUNT identified four potential emerging issues: FINICUM, LYMAN, another person named GLEAVE who knows Cliven BUNDY, and an Area 51 thing. HUNT shared that not a lot has moved on these issues but at 1:07:20 he cautioned that an event could come up quickly and said, " The BUNDY Ranch came up less than 10 days before the unrust...Ryan was on his way up there on the 7.th, and the unrustling was on the 12.th.. He didn’t know about it on the 6th.. So, things can happen quickly." 10. At 1:09:04 PAYNE returned to the conference call and asked about the "Global Rally for Humanity." HUNT told PAYNE that the press coverage on RITZHEIMER’ s event was better than last time. The OMD Advisory Board discussed militia operations across the country that targetted radical Islam. At 1:18:53, HUNT asked PAYNE when he found out about the BUNDY Ranch. PAYNE said it was on Sunday night before the next Saturday. HUNT said, Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 4 MNWR 0052520 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 5 of 91 "That’s how quickly things move when we find out about something.., hopefully we’ll find out about potential .... with more warning in the future, but we’ve got to be able to respond on a...minutemen on a moment’s notice if we’re going to be effective with OMD in defending people’s life, liberty and property." PAYNE identified "Mike" as the website designer. The meeting ended and FOLEY said, "Talk to you next week." Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052521 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 11. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 6 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151018 OMD AB meeting.mp3" located in the "O1VID" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Ryan PAYNE, Gary HUNT, Dennis DICKENSON and Timothy FOLEY. This recording is approximately 1 hour, 22 minutes and 47 seconds long. The conversation was centered on organizing OMD and the resentencing of Dwight and Steven HAMMOND in Oregon as a potential OMD mission. Also during the conversation the OMD Advisory Board members discussed other potential OMD missions, HUNT’ s draft of OMD’s Degrees of Involvement, and other OMD administrative issues. 12. At the beginning of this recording, PAYNE identified Patricia AIKEN as an individual that would j oin them during their conference call to discuss what she can do to help fundraise for OMD. PAYNE shared that the road trip that was planned from last Monday to "tomorrow" was postponed. PAYNE identified Lavoy FINICUM as one of the individuals whom he was planning on meeting. PAYNE shared that the meeting in Northern California in November was still on schedule. 1. At 0:04:05, PAYNE introduced a discussion on rancher Dwight HAMMOND in Oregon. PAYNE indicated that the spoke to Dwight HAMMOND and offered OMD’ s support to help HAMMOND stand up against the government the week earlier. PAYNE and HUNT briefed the details about the HAMMONDS’ legal battle and HUNT indicated that a few days ago the Court ruled that the HAMMONDS would be sentenced to five years in prison. At 0:08:30, HUNT said, "If you look at their property, too, I’ve got maps of the property, they have a fairly Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052522 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 7 of 91 large holding, whether its 480 or 1000 acres, I’m not sure yet I haven’t gone that far into it...but the...it’s completely surrounded with the exception of relatively small parcels by BLM land, very much like Cliven BUNDY’S was, and it looks like the government is just trying to infill their BLM land that surrounds the ranch that’s been there since 1891 ." HUNT said that the government wanted the HAMMONDS in prison so they wouldn’t be able to pay their fine and have to forfeit their land to the government. At 0:09:35, PAYNE said that he talked to Dwight HAMMOND at length last week. 3. At 0:10:34, a female who was identified as Patricia AIKEN cut PAYNE off and offered her own opinion of the HAMMOND situation. 4. At 0:11:08, HUNT asked PAYNE, "Is he [Dwight HAMMOND] going to invite us or not? Is he willing to take the inherent risk of defying the government over arrest?" HUNT then likened the HAMMOND situation to the Phil LYMAN situation. At 11:32, HUNT said "On both of these we’re kind of waiting on them to make a decision." 5. From 0:12:29 to 0:23:40, Patricia AIKEN briefed the OMD Advisory Board members on funding options. 6. At 0:23:55, the OMD Advisory Board members continued to discuss the HAMMONDS’ legal situation. At 0:31:50, PAYNE said, "We’ve got a guy who’s so down beaten, his statement was, ’I appreciate what it is that you guys are trying to do and say, ah, but at this point we’re supposed to report in to jail on January 4.th. and ha, I don’t see what can possibly be done between now and then to stop that.’ So they’re so down beaten that he couldn’t understand that what I was saying was, ’If you don’t want to go to jail because it’s a complete overstep and.., they’re blowing this thing way out of proportion. They’re trying to put a 73 year Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052523 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 8 of 91 old man in prison for having a controlled burn that got.., a little bit out of control...that there are lots of people who will support you in that decision.’ And ah, so, you know they’re so down beaten that can’t even really see through that and really see what it was that we’re saying. You don’t have to submit to these things and there’s people who will support you." At 0:32:59, HUNT responded, "I think it needs to be explained to him [Dwight HAMMOND] that ah, you know, the only thing that I can see. If he went underground it wouldn’t do any good because they’d lose the.., ranch anyway. The only thing that I can see that would.., have any hope would be for them to stay on the ranch and we occupy the ranch and, and don’t allow the arrest of them and let them continue to raise their livestock. It might be a long operation that way, unless the government got reasonable and was willing to settle and it would e a settlement based upon the resistance that we, that OMD ah, applied to keep them from being arrested and allow them to continue their ranching operation." PAYNE said that he hadn’t yet talked to the son, Steven HAMMOND. At 0:36:16, HUNT said, "Mrs. Hammond has moved up to Burn, a town north of the Ranch and is staying there. You know, if we did this anybody that wasn’t willing to stand against the government would probably just leave the ranch and they’re no charged so there’s no consequence to them." HUNT cautioned OMD that exerting pressure on Steven HAMMOND would give them reason to back away from OMD later on. At 0:39:00, PAYNE said, "This was actually referred to me by Lavoy FINICUM... excuse me, it was referred to me by the BUNDYS a couple of months back and Lavoy FINICUM mentioned it was going on. He made a video, actually, just this last week about it... and ah, which caused me to remember that I had the guy’s number and stuff. So I talked to Lavoy, he felt that it was pretty important that we talked to him but he said that he wasn’t really sure that Mr. HAMMOND would ah, ah, would even be receptive to such a thing." HUNT and PAYNE referenced Bill GOODE as an individual who Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052524 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 9 of 91 provided some information about the HAMMONDS. 7. At 0:42:30, FOLEY said, "They’ve got about two months left...they got about two months left to figure it out if they’re going to j ail or not or if we end up doing anything, or... so. Time is the enemy." The discussion about the HAMMONDS ended at 43:40 minutes into this recording. 8. From 0:43:48 to 1:01:00, the OMD Advisory Board discussed Michael Lewis ARTHUR and the Veterans on Patrol organization. The Advisory Board members voted to make the Veterans on Patrol a sanctioned OMD event. 9. HUNT and PAYNE spoke briefly about the OMD website. PAYNE identified "Michael VARGA" as the person working on the OMD website. HUNT identified VARGA as the future OMD webmaster. 10. From 1:01 : 10 to 1:44:37, the OMD Advisory Board discussed items on the OMD Response Matrix. The Advisory Board members then discussed the OMD Response Matrix. At PAYNE 1:03:30 PAYNE explained what was on the OMD response matrix. PAYNE explained that the BUNDY Ranch remained on the matrix based on the heightened awareness and maintaining communication with them. The Advisory Board discussed at length a land dispute between a rancher and the Federal Government based on the shifting of the Red River, which is the Oklahoma and Texas state-line. The OMD Advisory Board discussed gathering more information on this situation. The Advisory Board discussed Phil LYMAN and his sentencing for trespassing on BLM’s Recapture Canyon. HUNT said, like HAMMOND, he doesn’t want to spend time going through all the LYMAN information if they do not wish to request OMD assistance. The Advisory Board then discussed Lavoy FINICUM. PAYNE said that FINICUM enlisted "Budda" for his security. [Writer Comment: "Budda" is known to the writer as Brian Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052525 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 10 of 91 CAVALIER.] PAYNE said that he has more follow-up to do with FINICUM. The OMD Advisory Board then spent time about the Oath Keepers and Stewart RHODES. The OMD Advisory Board spoke about Stanton GLEAVE. PAYNE said that his situation was on the backburner and he would get more information. The Advisory Board discussed their plan for using militia action to intercept and interview refugees entering the state of Montana. 11. From 1:44:35 to 1:49:40, the Advisory Board discussed HUNT’s draft of OMD’s "Degrees of Involvement." HUNT described the Degrees of Involvement as a "level to assign the various proj ects and what they would entail initially." At 1:45:47, PAYNE questioned HUNT’ s highest level of involvement, level five. PAYNE said, "Level five, ’an event that appears to have no resolution absent violent confrontation’...um..." HUNT responded, "Flashpoint." PAYNE then said, "Yeah. Are, are you..i, I guess what my question would be is... so not, under level four you have, ’An event that anticipates no resolution short of armed defense.’ So, not to be provoked but..." HUNT explained that "Bundy Ranch" began as level three and went to level four. PAYNE asked HUNT, "So you’re saying that level five is an event where we’ve agreed that is such an egregious act, or, or whatever that has to be answered to with a defensive action that is aggressive?" HUNT replied, "Yes, something that we all consider ultimately will occur in this country. And that’s one that we would have to have our ducks completely in a row before we got involved in that. But it’ s there because it’ s a reality. You know I’d like to think that the government would finally submit to the defiance, but, you know, I really don’t believe it. You know? So, The Plan actually goes into five. Not, not from an OMD standpoint, but you know Parts One and Two were an individual standpoint when you go into, basically level five." Regarding the list HUNT explained, "This is internal, it will remain confidential only for the board members. I mean, we might publish the first four, I don’t think Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 10 MNWR 0052526 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 11 of 91 we’d want to publically acknowledge number five." 12. From 1:50:00 to the end of the conference call at 2:32:27, the OMD Advisory Board discussed OMD individual tasks and administrative issues. Of note, HUNT suggested that they incorporate a section about their history and the success at the BUNDY Ranch onto the OMD website. The OMD Advisory Board discussed setting a regular time for their Advisory Board Meetings on Sunday at 1300 EST every week. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052527 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 13. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 12 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151025 OMD AB meeting.mp3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Dennis DICKENSON, Gary HUNT, Ryan PAYNE and Timothy FOLEY. This recording is approximately 1 hour, 44 minutes and 13 seconds long. At the beginning of this recording Dennis DICKENSON identified the date at October 25, 2015. The conversation was centered on organizing OMD. On several occasions the "BUNDY Ranch" was mentioned. The following is a review of this recording. 14. At the beginning of the recording, the OMD Advisory Board members discussed the OMD Response Matrix. 15. At 0:06:09, the OMD Advisory Board discussed the language for the OMD sign- off and the sanctioning of Lewis ARTHUR’s mission in Arizona, Veterans on Patrol. 16. At 0:25:58, HUNT mentioned the OMD Degrees of Involvement. 17. At 0:29:32, HUNT provided an update on the person using the moniker "Raven" and the OMD Advisory Board decided to not spend any additional time trying to identify Raven. 18. At 0:32:00, HUNT spoke about Timothy MCVEIGH. HUNT shared that he corresponded with MCVEIGH at the end of his life. HUNT said that he wrote articles and posted his correspondence with MCVEIGH on his website. HUNT said that he regarded MCVEIGH as the first patriot in the 2nd. American Revolution and he defended his actions attacking a government building. 19. At 0:37:50, the OMD Advisory Board members discussed the OMD website. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 12 MNWR 0052528 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 13 of 91 While discussing the OMD website the Advisory Board discussed bringing Jon RITZHEIMER into OMD as an Advisory Board member at 0:47:00. FOLEY said that they could assess RITZHEIMER when the board brings him to "Gary’ s" and then his (FOLEY’ S) house. The Advisory Board spent time talking about whether or not they would list their names on the OMD website. 20. At 1:04:05, the OMD Advisory Board members discussed the OMD Degrees of Involvement. HUNT suggested listing the first four levels. The Advisory Board agreed that they could post the first four levels on the website but acknowledged that level five exists. At 1:05:09, HUNT said, "When an event goes...through level 2, then 3, then 4 and then to 5, that’s the time that we let people know there’s a level 5. As it escalates. If it escalates. I don’t know which one it’s going to be but we’ve got to step cautiously into these to make sure we’re the good guys all the way through until it gets to level 5." 21. At 1:05:42, the OMD Advisory Board members reviewed the individual task list. HUNT discussed Lisa Payne NAEGER as a potential new OMD Tier 2 member introduced by PAYNE. The OMD Advisory Board discussed and agreed that all members of OMD would have background checks completed. HUNT explained that he couldn’t pay for a background check. At 1:09:00, HUNT said, "The Internal Revenue Service has locked my house up so I can’t sell it and they stole 92 thousand dollars from me. I have no money coming in and I’ve gotta live the rest of my life on what I’ve got. I have no credit cards." PAYNE described NAEGER as a journalist. HUNT said that PAYNE and he have both talked to NAEGER extensively. PAYNE said that he spoke to Patricia AIKEN the night before and that he was working on her application. PAYNE said that three others applications out to people. 22. At 1:17:19, the Advisory Board discussed OMD finances and "BTFA." At Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 13 MNWR 0052529 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 14 of 91 1:20:07 PAYNE said, "Given the relationship between the BUNDYS and their Defensive Coordinator, if you will, myself, ah, basically OMA was funded by the BUNDYS... so there was not a whole lot of direct donations and we asked that all the donations go directly to the BUNDYS. So we, we’re never even accepting anything. So that came through in the force of logistics. Whether they were physical donations or monetary." HUNT said, "Well I think physical donations we would want to come to OMD, ah, like the stuff I’ve got sitting under my desk here, the..." PAYNE said, "Right." At 1:22:19, PAYNE said, "Speaking of...that type of stuff we do have, and when I get to the BUNDY Ranch I’ll get a good count of all of it, but basically the BUNDYS have pledged their, the support of the the.., food and toiletries and hygiene stuff that still is at the Ranch to the next operation that requires man power for any extended period of time." HUNT asked PAYNE, "While you’re there why don’t you go through the trash stuff and see if there’s any more that we didn’t get that time because there was some missing pages from the 8 1A x 11 ’s and I don’t know about the post-it-notes aren’t...unless you’ve’ run across something but you know we never did get anymore out of them after that first batch. It would be interesting if we did have the missing pages on the larger sheets." 23. At 1:23:30, the OMD Advisory Board members discussed their functional areas. HUNT discussed Lewis ARTHUR’s operation. FOLEY discussed training. PAYNE discussed the OMD Response Matrix. PAYNE said that he was still on schedule to head to HUNT’s residence on November 7. PAYNE said that he wasn’t headed to FOLEY’s area until the beginning of December. The OMD Advisory Board agreed to talk next Sunday. 24. At 1:41:53, as part of PAYNE’s closing remarks, he said, "Surely I’d like to see things like The Plan for the Restoration of Constitutional Republic and OMD coming together too so I’m looking forward to ah focusing those energies in that directly here shortly." Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 14 MNWR 0052530 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 25. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 15 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151101 OI~ID AB meeting.rap3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Dennis DICKENSON, Gary HUNT, Ryan PAYNE and Jon RITZHEIMER. This recording is approximately 2 hours, 55 minutes and 6 seconds long. At the beginning of the recording Ryan PAYNE identified the meeting as the Operation Mutual Defense Advisory Board meeting for November 1, 2015. During the meeting the Board members primarily discussed organizing OMD and potential OMD missions. On several occasions the "BUNDY Ranch" was mentioned. The Advisory Board also voted to accept RITZHEIMER as an OMD Advisory Board member. The following is a review of this recording. 26. PAYNE provided opening remarks and then asked to jump directly to Item #3, RITZHEIMER’s application. HUNT described RITZHEIMER as a drawing card. HUNT also said that, "We’ve got another item on the agenda that we want him for and that’s Islam." 27. The Advisory Board discussed background checks for OMD members. 28. At 0:13: 53, the Advisory Board members voted to accept RITZHEIMER as an OMD Advisory Board member. The Advisory Board members agreed that RITZHEIMER would be the Planning Coordinator. 29. At 0:26:49, Jon RITZHEIMER joined the Advisory Board meeting. RITZHEIMER said that he’s maintained contact with Gary HUNT since an event RITZHEIMER held back in May. The OMD Advisory Board described OMD to RITZHEIMER and questioned him about. HUNT described the different tiers of membership within OMD. HUNT likened the Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052531 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 16 of 91 Tier 1 Advisory Board members to generals who sit back in the safe zone and made the decisions. HUNT said that the whole idea of OMD came from the BUNDY Ranch. PAYNE described OMD most simply as a network. HUNT told RITZHEIMER that every Sunday they hold OMD Advisory Board Meetings and shared that this was their fourth meeting. 30. At 0:45:00, PAYNE spoke about the Response Matrix. PAYNE shared that the BUNDY Ranch still offered logistical capabilities and Cliven BUNDY’s desire to host an Operations base, if necessary. PAYNE said that he planned to talk to C. BUNDY about hosting a training event. PAYNE addressed the Red River situation. At 0:48:39, PAYNE told RITZHEIMER that while at the BUNDY Ranch PAYNE had a conversation with Stewart RHODES wherein PAYNE told RHODES about Operation Mutual Aid (OMA). PAYNE said that he told RHODES that his organization should have responded to the BUNDY Ranch, but because they didn’t respond, OMA was responding. PAYNE said that immediately after that conversation was when RHODES made the call for Oath Keepers to respond to the BUNDY Ranch. PAYNE said that since then the Oath Keepers adopted a mission to respond to events to people that need defense, similar to OMD. PAYNE spoke about refugee in-processing actions. PAYNE said that Tennessee and Georgia are interested in this plan. PAYNE spoke about Lavoy FINICUM and Phil LYMAN. PAYNE spoke about Special Agent Dan P. Love as the Special Agent in Charge in regards to the Recapture Canyon and the BUNDY Ranch. PAYNE spoke about Stanton GLEAVE. HUNT spoke about Veterans on Patrol. HUNT suggested that OMD start broadening their look at Islam. 31. From 1:13:28 to 1:37:00, the OMD Advisory Board discussed the effect Islam and refugees are having on the country. At 1:18:51, HUNT said, "We always looked at the government as the.., other side of the line. And I think we need to start looking at Islam as the Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 16 MNWR 0052532 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 17 of 91 other side of the line as the potential threat to individual rights in this country." PAYNE said the government becomes a proxy arm of the Islamic infiltration. PAYNE said, how can we directly address their influence on society? HUNT referred the OMD Advisory Board members to page 35 of"The Plan" regarding his feeling about immigration. [Writer comment: "The Plan" is short for HUNT’ s work titled, "The Plan for Restoration of Constitutional Government."] 32. From1:37:00 to 1:47:15, the OMD Advisory Board discussed refugees. At 1:39:18 PAYNE described the plan that he and HUNT have been developing. He said, "The thing we’re trying to do up here in Montana, putting together a Committee of Safety and then ah, getting the Committee of Safety to approve a militia action to intercept...these convoys of refugees as they come into a state and then perform the in-processing preliminarily before they reach their destination and completely.., independent of any governmental process." HUNT cut in and said, "A thorough interrogation even to the point of holding bacon an inch in front of their face, just not touching them with it... and then turning a report over to the local law enforcement and going public with the report to show...the country." PAYNE said the plan is comprehensive but it hasn’t been written down. PAYNE said that that plan could be refined and presented to different units in each state that could perform the same function. 33. From 1:47:18 to 1:52:15, the OMD Advisory Board members discussed the OMD Individual Task List wherein they spoke about OMD training and FOLEY’s training plan. 34. At 1:53:30, RITHEIMER asked what type of organization OMD was. HUNT explained that OMD was in the womb right now but the object was to go public the following week after the Advisory Board meeting. HUNT also said that another organization that’s not even in the womb yet called "Bear Truth Faith and Allegiance" (BTFA), which he described as the fundraising arm that would fund OMD, as necessary. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 17 MNWR 0052533 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 35. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 18 of 91 At 2:00:30, PAYNE spoke about potential new OMD members. PAYNE mentioned Tom DIAMOND as a potential Tier 2 member of OMD. HUNT identified DIAMOND as someone who would take part in the discussions going on in Northern California. PAYNE suggested that his former family member "SPIRO" and his associate "Dahboo7" as potential members of OMD. PAYNE described SPIRO as a sensationalist journalist in a late20’s or early 30’s. PAYNE identified Dahboo7’s real name as Justin. The Advisory Board discussed the usefulness of SPIRO and Dahboo7 to OMD. PAYNE shared that he had out a few OMD applications out. PAYNE said that one application was out to a Canadian-American who PAYNE described as a former Canadian Warrant Officer or Sergeant Major in the U.S. Army. PAYNE said that this Canadian-American was the first person who responded to the mine in Lincoln, Montana with the Oath Keepers. PAYNE shared that his name is John. 36. At 2:38:47, the OMD Advisory Board discussed the meeting in Northern California on November 7. RITZHEIMER questioned PAYNE about Tom DIAMOND and at 2:41:20 PAYNE discussed his relationship with DIAMOND. The OMD Advisory Board discussed a greater scrutiny for DIAMOND before he becomes a member of OMD. At 2:48:37, RITZHEIMER said, "I don’t know if you guys know this about me... I used to ride with a 1% Outlaw Motorcycle Club and..." PAYNE cut in and said, "Me too." RITZHEIMER continued, "Obviously it’s like, you know, we’re worried about Feds or anybody infiltrating and you got your prospecting period.., you know, you do a good, thorough check if you wanna make sure you’re not being infiltrated... I’m going to keep my guard up." 37. RITZHEIMER spoke about the need to build trust within their organization. At 2:51:07, RITZHEIMER said that he was in the Reserves during the BUNDY Ranch event. After the board member’s discussion on building trust PAYNE concluded the Advisory Board Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 18 MNWR 0052534 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 19 of 91 meeting. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 19 MNWR 0052535 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 38. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 20 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151105a Special OMD AB meeting.mp3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Gary HUNT, Dennis DICKENSON, Timothy FOLEY, and Jon RITZHEIMER. This recording is approximately 32 minutes and 23 seconds long. At the beginning of this recording Gary HUNT said that he was standing in for "Ryan." HUNT identified the date and time as November 5.th at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time. The Advisory Board members primarily discussed OMD administrative matters but HUNT also gave a short brief on the HAMMOND situation in Oregon. The following is a review of this recording. 39. HUNT discussed the "grand opening" for OMD and making preparations for the press release with Lisa Payne NAEGER and SPIRO. The OMD Advisory Board voted to allow HUNT to work with NAEGER and SPIRO on the OMD press release. 40. HUNT spoke about "VOP" and Lewis ARTHUR. HUNT said that ARTHUR would be supportive of an operation like BUNDY Ranch. HUNT discussed making VOP and Arizona Border Recon (ABR) as sanctioned OMD events. The OMD Advisory Board voted to allow these events as sanctioned OMD events. 41. At 0:10:05, HUNT said, "I sent out a brief. This is based on a conversation that Ryan and I had and subsequently Ryan had brought up the issue of, is there anything we can do without them [the Hammond Family]? Can we have a Grand Jury? And when, I, I told him I was doubtful but then he called me later with ah, Ammon Bundy. He’d met with him in, in ah, Burns, up where the Hammonds are. And ah, we had ah, you know a conference call. He put it Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 2O MNWR 0052536 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 21 of 91 on speaker phone, actually. And so we were talking about it and something occurred to me, that we could proceed without it, but I had put out a call for grand jury members based on, ah, you know, what Jon Ritzheimer was asking for. Right now I’ve only had one person volunteer for the grand jury. So I don’t expect that we’re going to get cooperation for a...grand jury. But I suggest that um, we could perhaps ah prepare an indictment laying out the charges against the government, ah which is option two. And, ah, well, read option two it would be to get them to rescind, or to overturn the decision that fell in court. Now that’s a very risky situation it quite easily could lead to flashpoint. But at Ryan’s request I put my head to the grindstone, or nose to the grindstone I guess, to try and come up with something that could be justified. I think I could justify our action adequately with the history that happened at the ranch with more details, ah, but um, there’s no doubt there’s a high level of risk in that. That could go to five, level five. Um, the other one, option three, was one that Ammon brought up and his idea was that he buy or lease the allotments from ah, the Hammonds and then he goes and sets fire on them and see what happened." 42. At 0:15:05, FOLEY spoke about increased activity on the U.S.-Mexico border. 43. At 0:21:35, HUNT and FOLEY spoke about using the VOP Veterans for OMD missions. HUNT suggested using the veterans at the HAMMOND Ranch or the border operations. The OMD Advisory Board discussed another organization possibly working with the Veterans on Patrol called "3UP" or "United Patriots 3%," which is led by someone named DRIVER RAY. 44. At 0: 28:27, RITZHEIMER and HUNT spoke about Islam and RITZHEIMER suggested that people across the country file complaints against mosques for telling people to read the Koran. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 21 MNWR 0052537 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 45. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 22 of 91 The Advisory Board stopped their meeting and agreed to resume approximately 20 minutes later when Ryan PAYNE would be available. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 22 MNWR 0052538 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 46. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 23 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151105b Special OMD AB meeting.mp3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Gary HUNT, Ryan PAYNE, Jon RITZHEIMER, Timothy FOLEY and Dennis DICKENSON. This recording is approximately 1 hour, 18 minutes and 48 seconds long. At the beginning of this recording Gary HUNT identified the meeting as a continuation of the earlier meeting on the same day and the time as 5:02 Pacific Time. HUNT said that all members of the OMD Advisory Board were present and he then turned the meeting over to Ryan PAYNE. PAYNE said that he was currently traveling through the "desolation of Oregon." The conversation was centered on the HAMMOND situation and OMD’s potential response with Ammon BUNDY. At the end of the conversation the OMD Advisory Board also discussed William WOLF and discussed options to break him out of federal custody, wherein PAYNE discussed the use of a protest movement to do so, in a similar plan used at the BUNDY Ranch. The following is a review of this recording. 47. At 0:01:11, PAYNE described this situation "I believe that what we’re about to discuss is very likely to be...the next big, ah, event that’s going to go on." PAYNE continued, "We have.., such a gross overreach with this one that we can’t possibly ignore it. Ah, and to do so...would seed so much ground, a precedent of, ah, corruption and tyranny would have been set to such a high degree that I’m not sure how it...would come back without some form of violent resistance, and so, I think this is a very heavy matter that we’re about to discuss." PAYNE then asked if everyone had a chance to review the brief on the HAMMOND situation. HUNT said that he explained the ramifications of Option 2 and where Option 3 came in. PAYNE said that Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 23 MNWR 0052539 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 24 of 91 he met with Mrs. HAMMOND today and that Ammon BUNDY met with Steve HAMMOND yesterday. PAYNE described a brief background on the HAMMOND’s land and legal battles. At 0:04:28, PAYNE said, "It’s pretty egregious and its very obvious and I think we need to do whatever we can, and, and the BUNDYS feel the same at this point.., and are willing to work closely with us to ensure that this...gets all the attention that it needs. In order to garner a response...if the vote goes that way here." PAYNE said they weren’t able to meet with Dwight HAMMOND, whom PAYNE described as the father and the owner of the ranch. 48. At 0:07:27, PAYNE said, "Now Ammon and I advised him [Steve HAMMOND] today, you know, that the idea would be that they did not go to prison, nor do they pay the fines. So, well, we’ll see where that all goes. They’re going to have a family discussion and such." 49. At 0:09:08, PAYNE said, "At this point it looks like there’s not going to be a request." PAYNE went on to say that Ammon BUNDY and the BUNDY family believe they have an obligation to protect the HAMMONDS. 50. At 0:10:00, PAYNE said, "What Ammon was very clear on was that regardless of whether or not they require assistance and if you guys read the ah, the letter that I forwarded from Ammon, from the BUNDY Family, which Ammon put together, then it makes clear their position that it doesn’t really matter that the HAMMONDS request assistance or desire assistance in any form because.., we the people have an obligation to stand against tyranny wherever it resides.., so that’s their position." 51. From 0:10:45 to 0:18:45, PAYNE spoke about his and A. BUNDY’s meeting with the Sheriff. PAYNE said that it was made clear to the Sheriff that "we" will defend the HAMMONDS regardless of whether the Sheriff makes the same decision to defend the HAMMONDS. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 24 MNWR 0052540 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 52. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 25 of 91 PAYNE spoke about a meeting that he and AMMON had with SUSAN HAMMOND. At 0:20:40, PAYNE said, "I made one statement as I was walking out the door and, and she, she wrote this down. And she intends on, on telling her husband and son this specifically, but the statement that I made was, CAt at this point the decision that, that you guys have to make is whether you’re going to watch as we defend your liberties, or you’re going to stand with us as we defend your liberties. But regardless, it’s looking like we’re gonna defend your liberties, whether you want it or not.’" HUNT replied, "The question that has to be answered then, somewhere along the line, is...will they support us from a distance, sit back and do nothing, or will they oppose us?" HUNT went on, "You’re going to have to talk to her after they have their family meeting and assure they’re not going to oppose us because everything else aside, that would be disastrous. I think that would be a, a condition that would require us to walk away from it." 53. From 0:21:59 to 0:43:50, the OMD Advisory Board then discussed whether or not it was OMD’s mission to stand up for people who won’t stand for themselves. At 0:27:20, PAYNE said, "Ammon and I spent a great deal of time last night discussing options.., on how to remove the barrier from around the family if they don’t request it..." PAYNE argued with the OMD Advisory Board that it was their duty to defend the fights of individuals even if they are not willing to defend themselves from the government. RITZHEIMER suggested that OMD organize a protest in support of the HAMMONDS and HUNT said that protesting is a waste of time. At 0:25:23, HUNT said, "I don’t think that OMD wants to be involved in just.., protest issues, I mean, our purpose is not civil disobedience, but civil defiance. We’ve got to have.., a good, clean task to work on." The OMD Advisory Board discussed several operations to prevent the HAMMONDS from turning themselves into federal custody. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 25 MNWR 0052541 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 54. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 26 of 91 At 0:43:52, HUNT discussed three situations or "doors," where OMD would consider taking action in the HAMMOND situation. HUNT described the options as: Door 1, if the HAMMONDS support OMD from a distance, Door 2, if the HAMMONDS remain silent about OMD’s actions and choose not get involved with OMD but allow them to proceed, and Door 3, if the HAMMONDS come out in opposition to OMD action. HUNT asked the Advisory Board if they wished to leave all doors opened or if they wished to close one. At 0:45:56, HUNT called for a vote to decide if OMD would continue to consider offering support to the HAMMONDS in three different situations. The Advisory Board voted unanimously to "keeping the door opened" to Door 1, if"they [the HAMMONDS] support what we’re doing, even tacitly." The Advisory Board voted unanimously to keeping the door opened to Door 2, if "they [the HAMMONDS] sit back and do nothing but agree not to turn against us." HUNT explained that Door 3 is where the indication is that "they will turn against us if we pursue trying to help them protect their life, liberty and property." FOLEY, RITZHEIMER and HUNT voted to close Door 3. DICKENSON suggested that Door 3 could remain opened if there was another viable option available. PANYE did not clearly vote on Door 3, but later at 1:04:02, PAYNE said that the vote for Door 3 was 3-to-2, with he and Dennis voting to keep it opened. 55. HUNT said that if Door 1 or 2 are options then OMD should begin to invest time on the HAMMOND situation. At 0:47:26, HUNT said, "We did discuss some ideas and I’ll throw one at you. If we called for a demonstration there [the courthouse where the HAMMONDS were scheduled to turn themselves in], or got other people, Pete Santilli, and others to call for a demonstration and the armed people met 20, 30 miles away from the courthouse...the armed people, once we got a body of a hundred people armed, they would move into the area but they would leave their weapons in their car, stay near their car, and once we get Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 26 MNWR 0052542 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 27 of 91 the second hundred, because I think you’d need at least 200 to be effective, that then the um, ah, then once the second hundred arrives, then everybody pulls out their guns and all of a sudden it’s an armed camp. Now we might lose some demonstrators at that point but at least we’ve kind of wiggled our way into an effective posture rather than erode going in with rifles. So if it was in, seizing the courthouse, that was something that Ryan and I and Ammon came up with yesterday, just for an explanation of that scenario." PAYNE said that one of the purposes behind the courthouse idea is to demand that the judge overturns his/her decision to sentence the HAMMONDS. PAYNE noted that that would be something that should happen before the HAMMONDS were supposed to turn themselves in on January looking at perhaps January 1, or more likely January 56. 2nd to 4.th.. HUNT replied, "So we’re begin the siege of the courthouse." At 0:51:21, DICKENSON asked PAYNE if he thought the BUNDYS would take action on their own, without OMD support. PAYNE said, "Yes." PAYNE said "The BUNDYS have made it clear that they’ re in support of some type of action.., regardless of what the opinion is of that action." PAYNE said, "If I tell the BUNDY’S that we decided that...we’re not going to do anything about it. That’s going to weight pretty heavily on their decision, though." 57. At 0: 52:48, FOLEY said that the only thing he can see that OMD educate the people in a protest outside the courthouse where the HAMMOND’s were supposed to turn themselves in. PAYNE and HUNT disagreed with FOLEY. HUNT said, "We’re civil defiance, not civil disobedience." 58. At 0:53:34, the OMD Advisory Board discussed another option if Ammon BUNDY purchase the grazing rights from the HAMMONDS and then set it afire. At 0: 56:04, HUNT said, "I believe that option 3... basically we’re dealing with Bundy Ranch continuation. That the defense of Ammon’s right to... deal with the allotment land to the best benefit of grazing Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 27 MNWR 0052543 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 28 of 91 on it, that... OMD could support that, but the HAMMONDS are out of the picture at this point and we know the BUNDYS are going to stand tall on their responsibilities with regard to the relationship with, um, OMD." At 0:58:54, PAYNE said, "The BUNDYS... really and truly believe.., as a result of the support they received at the ranch, that the militia is the proper.., defensive mechanism for the people and, you know, they’ve been assured and they feel the protection of the militia even to this day." PAYNE went on to say, "I think that.., if we didn’t stand with the BUNDYS that it would surely diminish our, ah, the notion of our fortitude in the cause to them." HUNT said that it was his impression based on his conversation with Ammon BUNDY the day before that they [the BUNDYS] had to have some support from the HAMMONDS. 59. At 1:04:40, PAYNE said that he recorded the conversations he had with Mrs. HAMMOND and Sheriff Ward. HUNT asked PAYNE to get those submitted on the Dropbox. The OMD Advisory Board voted to table the HAMMOND issue until after the HAMMOND Family. 60. From 1:07:24 to 1:17:18, the OMD Advisory Board discussed William Wolf and potentially breaking him out of federal custody while in transit from a j ail to a federal prison or with the use of a protest movement. HUNT said that William WOLF was convicted on both counts and HUNT told PAYNE that they needed to talk about WOLF. DICKENSON asked HUNT if he and PAYNE were looking at any viable options and HUNT said, "Well that’s what we gotta talk about, I don’t know if there is one or not, you know, do we want to break somebody out of prison, or not." HUNT continued, "Sometime after he’s sentenced, he’ll be transported." PAYNE discussed KC MASSEY and BEACHER as other political prisoners and HUNT said that WOLF is the only potential candidate for breaking him out. HUNT said, Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 28 MNWR 0052544 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 29 of 91 don’t think we’re going to go...after a prison. I mean the only logical time would be in transit, I think." At 1:11:36, PAYNE said that, "Any specific action that requires a certain skill set and level of experience when we’re talking about small unit tactics can be achieved anywhere." At 1:15:15, PAYNE said, "As a plan of...possible operational platform in the future, ah one of the things that has been discussed.., and you can see it on some level with the BUNDY Ranch situation where we were able to create cohesion.., very solid cohesion between the protest movement and the militia effort in the sense that, well you can look at a lot of those videos and you can have no clue that there’ s a militia effort there.., and so the militia effort maintained a strict.., defensive stance that was separated from the protest movement and integrated into it because a lot of those protestors were armed and were part of the plan, ah, but the vast majority of the protestors had no clue of what the militia plan was. On that regard, on the same note.., an operational consideration is to combine a protest move with the militia effort in order to provide either infil, exfil, or both. And so for instance, something like a... dynamic entry, ah, into a prison...which could take place, either from within or outside of a protest, totally.., outside of the protesters’ knowledge at all.., the exfil, let’s say that the safest exfiltration for that operation was directly into a very large group of people who are openly in support of freeing the man. And so ah, anyways, the same things have been talked about with a couple other instances on how to use.., a protest movement to secure entry or exit." 61. The OMD Advisory Board agreed that their next meeting out be the following Sunday. HUNT said that the OMD Advisory Board meetings will be put into Dropbox. HUNT asked PAYNE if he was heading south now and PAYNE asked HUNT to stop the recording and the recording ends. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 29 MNWR 0052545 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 62. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 30 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151108 OMD AB ineeting.inp3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Ryan PAYNE, Jon RITZHEIMER, Gary HUNT, Timothy FOLEY, and Dennis DICKENSON. This recording is approximately 1 hour, 15 minutes and 58 seconds long. At the beginning of this recording Ryan PAYNE identified the meeting as an OMD Advisory Board meeting held on Sunday, Noveinber 8, 2015, at 10:08 Pacific Time. The conversation was centered on OMD organization and administrative matters, such as background checks and going public with their website. Also discussed during the meeting were potential OMD operations, including Melissa DIEGEL, the HAMMOND situation and William WOLF. While discussing the potential of freeing WOLF from federal custody, PAYNE discussed the use of an armed protest movement and it’s successful use at the BUNDY Ranch. The following is a review of this recording. 63. At the beginning of the recording PAYNE referenced the discussion about the HAMMOND situation the prior Thursday but then did not speak about it. 64. The OMD Advisory Board then discussed the Melissa DIEGEL situation. RITZHEIMER explained to the board that DIEGEL’ S kids were taken from her by the children’ s hospital. RITZHEIMER claimed that the hospital received a "monetary kickback" when they refer children to CPS and that while children are in CPS’s custody they are subject to extensive medical testing. The board agreed that HUNT would prepare a brief for the DEIGEL situation. 65. At 0:03:36, HUNT asked to talk about the HAMMOND situation for a moment and said that he and Ryan previously discussed a "4th door ,"which would be in defense of the Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 3O MNWR 0052546 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 31 of 91 BUNDYS. HUNT said, "I’ve got a call into AMMON and we’re going to follow up and see. If the BUNDY family comes up with a plan where we can defend the BUNDYS instead of the HAMMONDS, that would be fourth door. So that’s ah, pending until I hear from, I or Ryan hear from ah Ammon and find out what the BUNDY family plans to do so that’s not, it’s still pending." PAYNE then said, "That would be a decision that we would all have to make at that time." HUNT said, "Just to let you aware that that one’s.., still working on it." 66. The OMD Advisory Board went back to discuss the Melissa DIEGEL situation. At 0:08:05, PAYNE asked RITZHEIMER what should happen in the DIEGEL situation. RITZHEIMER said that he wanted to handle the situation as peacefully as possible. He suggested that the first course of action be to shed light on the situation and putting pressure on the courts so that they would change their ruling and return the kids to their family. He suggested that the worst case scenario, "we are going to have to retrieve these kids and get them back with their morn." At 0:10:07, PAYNE said, "We both just agreed and I’m sure that anybody here who has kids would agree that getting your kids taken away is... one of the worst things that you could possibly imagine. The governments, talking about making it go peacefully and that type of stuff, of course that’s already going to be the effort. The government has no qualms, basically they kidnapped these kids...let’s say somebody kidnaps somebody else’s kids. A private citizen kidnaps some kids. Does the government wait until there’s a court decisions or wait until there’s proceedings or wait and see what they’re going to do and, you know and try and shift the tone of things and shed light on things. You see what I’m getting at? Or do they put up a team together, they search, if they locate them they bust doors down and they get the damn kids." RITZHEIMER then said, "Yeah, I would like to get the kids sooner than later and, and let us hold them, hold the kids or something. I’m sure there’s plenty of ah support and Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 31 MNWR 0052547 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 32 of 91 militia men and everything out there that guys that have kids that this would be a pretty passionate case." HUNT said, "Let’s get the brief together though and if necessary, if there’ s urgency, we can have a special meeting like we did last week." 67. The OMD Advisory Board then spent time discussing the board member’s individual background checks and questioned whether simple criminal history checks were adequate. At 0:17:12, FOLEY said, "My thing is if we’re, you know, preparing to do something to stand up against the government and everything, do you want to make sure they’re not a prohibited possessor? That was my main goal. Because I didn’t want to be taken down by somebody who lied to me about being a prohibited possessor and all of a sudden he’ s walking around with a firearm and we get popped for that." The Advisory Board agreed that OMD would run their background checks through FOLEY. 68. The OMD Advisory Board spent time discussing OMD going public with their website. As part of this discussion they spoke about the "Articles" section on the OMD website. At 0:34:10, HUNT said, "What I’ve kind of had in mind for that is ah, articles pertaining to OMD generally because, for example, Ryan wrote that thing on the Bundy ranch." 69. At 0:40:00, the Advisory Board discussed William WOLF. HUNT said that his communication with WOLF was almost non-existent. HUNT suggested that the members of the board go to his blog, type in "Wolf Trap" and read the articles. At 0:42:44, HUNT said, "The question arises, and I don’t want to go into too much detail, if I can find that somebody wants to not take the transportation that’s provided for him, do we want to provide alternate transportation? That’s a pretty heavy task." At 0:44:34, PAYNE said, "I guess the question that we really should answer here is a matter of precedence for us. Which is, when people are already imprisoned and they’re basically being held as a political prisoner at this point, Wolf was Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 32 MNWR 0052548 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 33 of 91 setup because of his, his outspokenness on Patriot issues, if somebody is being held as a political prisoner, are we going to entertain the notion of seeing to it that they are not held as a political prisoner?" PAYNE continued, "My opinion is that, I believe that if they, it is a task that at some point needs to be taken up, and as far as Operation Mutual Aid was concerned, the predecessor here [loud noise] made the guarantee in some public statements that if anybody were arrested in connection to Operation Mutual Aid, in travel to or from an Operation Mutual Aid mission, ah, or within any affiliation associated with Operation Mutual Aid, that I would personally pursue operations in order to make sure they were free. And so I guess that says what my opinion is." HUNT discussed the WOLF situation and provided legal arguments for his defense. At 0:46:57, HUNT said, "He [Wolf] was beginning to temper away from that though, because when we started talking about Committees of Safety, ah he started realizing that perhaps there was a... solution through Committees of Safety, which is the same thing that were looking at as kind of an extension of OMD." At 0:49:12, HUNT said, "When we get to what I mentioned, the transportation issue, it’s a pretty risky task and ah, it may be too much to take on now, maybe it’s not.., do we want to establish a good solid reputation where we would get more people to go along with this, or do we take something risky like this early on in the game? But he’ll probably be sentenced; I assume he’s going to stay in Yellowstone down in Billings for a couple months until sentencing, so we’ve got time to look into this unless they transport him right away. But chances usually they usually keep them locally until sentencing. After this phone call they might decide to move him again." PAYNE said, "You know, everything OMD is risky. There’s probably not going to be an operation that we consider that because the courses of action that are pursuant to our mission statement, I don’t think.., anybody’s fooling themselves that we’re not all putting ourselves out on a limb here and anybody involved is going to be doing that. I guess Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 33 MNWR 0052549 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 34 of 91 my issue is, along with lines of what Gary finished up there with, do we need to pursue, ah, operations that build the notoriety and the effectiveness of OMD before we consider ... ones that are not so publically palatable, and I hate to put people, you know the notion of justice and people’s liberties in that type &box, where we’re using our own notoriety, but I think that goes along with our effectiveness. Whether or not we can garner enough support. I know that we can put together a team in order to accomplish that, those tasks, but is there any way to proceed after that?" HUNT said that he could prepare a brief on the Wolf situation. HUNT said that in part of his brief he would give the group a picture of the facility where Wolf would likely be transferred. 70. The OMD Advisory Board continued discussing Individual Tasks. As part of this conversation the Advisory Board discussed background checks again. 71. At 0:58:00, the OMD Advisory Board discussed new potential OMD members. PAYNE said that "we’re" in discussion with a man now who has completed the background check and the application named Tom DIAMOND. PAYNE said that DIAMOND was in Northern California to "meet with us" and said that he (DIAMOND) is in the decision stage. HUNT then said that he got to spend a lot of time with DIAMOND while Ryan was writing his report from the BUNDY Ranch. HUNT said that DIAMOND is very capable and his enthusiasm continued to rise as they talked between the three of them and one-on-one with HUNT. HUNT said that he was "very impressed by Tom" based on his personal interview with him. HUNT and PAYNE agreed that Tom would be Tier 2 member. PAYNE shared that he has four others that he has applications out to but he’s waiting on them to return them. 72. At 1:00:45, RITHEIMER shared that he had a background in logistics and he volunteer to help with OMD’ s logistics until that position was filled. PAYNE said, "At the Bundy Ranch a ton of contacts were made for people that are very adept at procurement of Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 34 MNWR 0052550 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 35 of 91 different things." PAYNE asked if he could share his contacts with RITZHEIMER. HUNT then discussed planning for "Bundy Ranch 2." HUNT said that the preppers would likely come in and help and suggested that they could be responsible for cooking, dishwashing, running a medical facility, and other things. PAYNE then shared that there was already a substantial amount of supplies at the BUNDY Ranch for future operations and asked RITZHEIMER to j oin him there to assess the supplies that are available there. 73. The remainder of this OMD Advisory Board meeting was spent discussing OMD’ s administrative matters. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 35 MNWR 0052551 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 74. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 36 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151115-OI~ID-AB meeting.rap3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Gary HUNT, Jon RITZHEIMER, Ryan PAYNE, Dennis DICKENSON and Timothy FOLEY. This recording is approximately 1 hour, 57 minutes and 55 seconds long. At the beginning of this recording Ryan PAYNE identified the meeting as an OMD Advisory Board meeting held on Sunday, November 15, 2015, at 10:00 Pacific Time. The conversation was centered on OMD administrative matters and potential OMD operations, including the HAMMOND situation, Melissa DIEGEL, William WOLF, and the interdiction and interrogation of refugees in the United States. The following is a review of this recording. 75. At 0:02:00, PAYNE began discussing the HAMMOND situation. PAYNE provided a synopsis of the OMD Advisory Board’s previous decisions on intervening in the HAMMOND situation. PAYNE said that the board voted to close "door three," which meant that OMD would not pursue any action if the HAMMONDS were publically opposed to OMD action. PAYNE shared that the last vote involved keeping other options opened for OMD, such as if the HAMMONDS made a request for OMD action, or if they agreed not to publically oppose OMD action. 76. From 0:03:03 to 0:7:50, PAYNE provided an update on his and A. BUNDY’s recent conversation with the Sheriff. PAYNE said that based on his conversations with the local Sheriff, he believes the Federal Government has been feeding him information to paint A. BUNDY and PAYNE in a "certain light." PAYNE said that he shared with the Sheriff the idea Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 36 MNWR 0052552 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 37 of 91 of pursuing a grand jury in order to look at the evidence in the HAMMOND case with the Sheriff. PAYNE believed that the Sheriff was unwilling to do this. At 0:07:00, PAYNE said that one of the things that he and A. BUNDY discussed was keeping pressure on the Sheriff to make a decision. PAYNE said the Sheriff’s decision will determine "what our courses of action are...what direction we go with this thing." PAYNE said of the Sheriff, "He’s also been told that there will be no neutral ground." PAYNE then told the board members that they can find recordings of his meetings with A. BUNDY and Mrs. HAMMONDS and his meeting with A. BUNDY and the Sheriff in the Dropbox account. 77. From 0:07:51 to 0:10:50, PAYNE provided details about his conversation with Mrs. HAMMOND the day prior to this meeting. PAYNE said that Mrs. HAMMOND "sounds supportive of the idea a defensive force coming together to insure the safety of the HAMONDS." PAYNE said that both Mrs. HAMMOND and Dwight HAMMOND shared with him that Dwight and Steven HAMMOND are fearful of being shot if they don’t "toe the line" or "try to make an effort to stand on their own two feet." PAYNE said Steven HAMMOND is in charge of the decision on how to proceed because they’ve left the ranch to him. PAYNE said that he and A. BUNDY have a meeting scheduled for the coming Wednesday with all of the HAMMONDS, including Susan, Dwight, Steven and his wife. PAYNE shared that he and A. BUNDY also have another meeting scheduled with the Sheriff later that week. PAYNE said that he asked Mrs. HAMMOND if they would come out in the negative against a response from OMD and she wanted some more information on what an OMD response would look like. PAYNE said that he told her that, "It would be non-violent but it would be firm. Ah, you know, since we haven’t come up with any courses of action it’s difficult to present her with something. Ah, so there’s basically a lack of clarity on our part with that, we’re kind of in the same position." Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 37 MNWR 0052553 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 78. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 38 of 91 At 0:10:52, RITZHEIMER asked, "Is there any articles or anything that’s already out there about this case that I can help promote, push out and shed light on?" PAYNE directed RITZHEIMER to A. BUNDY’S BlogSpot page. PAYNE also informed RITZHEIMER that A. BUNDY had already put things out on Facebook about this with half a million hits. At 0:12:08, RITZHEIMER said, "Since we’re seeing a light, a possible light at the end of the tunnel, of we may, they may actually let us help them take a stand. Then I want to start pushing it out there and getting people prepared, I guess, just more aware of the situation because I was completely unaware of it until I heard about it through you guys." At 0:12:59, PAYNE said, "Ammon, you know there’s discussion about strategy and how to keep things moving, ah, how to put pressure on [coughs] on the Sheriff. One of the things Ammon specifically did was leave out that citation, ah, so that the Sheriff would have to come to him for the citation, basically... It’s going to show whether the Sheriff is actually going pursuing this, first off. And second off it’s going to maintain a relationship ah, with ah, our side, ah, with the Sheriff, who already seems pretty, you know, he seems not only receptive to our ideas, ah, but he does show a genuine respect for, for the cause. Anyway, we’ll see where all that goes." At 0:14:45, RITZHEIMER explained to PAYNE his purpose for sending out information. He said, "I’m not doing it for them [the HAMMONDS], I’m doing it so people can start making arrangements, ah you know? If, if, letting their employer know, or just, it’s so the people that are going to be coming, start making preparations or plans, like give them an estimated timeline, or stuff like that. [unintelligible] January timeline that we’re going to be headed up there and taking a stance in January then they, at least they got a month or something to understand or be able to make preparations." At 0:16:00, HUNT said, "I was just thinking you know, that ah getting people prepared when we might not do something is not very good for us. You know, when we talk about something Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 38 MNWR 0052554 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 39 of 91 might happen and the HAMMONDS don’t go along with it and we find no way to get in, ah, it might make us look a little foolish, kind of like the Oath Keepers." RITZHEIMER shared that he was not planning on putting OMD’s name on the information he shares. FOLEY shared that he posted a link to the Bundy’s page on his social media page. FOLEY said, "I told everybody, ’If you don’t know what’s happening, you need to start informing yourself of what’s happening, because this could be the next Bundy.’" FOLEY continued, "I would rather be informed that something’ s coming and not happen, and then stand down, then all of a sudden at the last second sit there and go ’holy crap I can’t do it because... I’ve gotta move,’ or whatever, you know? So I, I think, ah, putting something out there that’s saying, ’it’s possible it’s coming so you might want to think ab out it.’" At 0:19: 39, F OLEY said, "I think it’ s b enefi ci al to get it out there because, ah, you know you don’t have to put the ’OMD’ on there, but we need to start blasting it around there to get people to realize that this could happen and it could happen in the next eight weeks and eight weeks is not a lot of time." At 0:20:08 PAYNE said, "we’re talking more like four, four to six weeks.., depending on how preemptive we want to get. They haven’t even been told where they’re supposed to report to." The board then talked about Steven and Dwight HAMMONDS’ original sentences and the government’s appeal. 79. At 0:24:50, the Advisory Board discussed PAYE’s recordings. PAYNE said that he would be recording the upcoming meeting with the Sheriff. PAYNE also explained why the initial recording with the Sheriff was choppy. 80. The Advisory Board then discussed the OMD website. HUNT shared the website views, hits, new member statistics, and PAYNE talked about the OMD Facebook Page. HUNT also spoke about another blog called the Western Rifle Shooter’s Association. 81. From 0:31:50 to 0:42:19, the OMD Advisory Board discussed a potential OMD Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 39 MNWR 0052555 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 40 of 91 operation to free William WOLF from federal custody. After detailed discussion on what an OMD operation might look like, the OMD Advisory Board agreed to monitor the WOLF situation and agreed that there’s no feasible action to be taken at the moment. 82. From 0:42:20 to 0:57:55 the OMD Advisory Board discussed the Melissa DIEGEL situation. 83. From 0:58:00 to 1:30:10, the OMD Advisory Board discussed refugees in New Orleans. At 0:1:04:40, PAYNE asked the board to review his proposed course of action. PAYNE described the course of action, which involved states’ militias granting authorization to interview refugees as they arrive in their states. Once interviews are conducted the plan would be to detain "suspected" refugees and turn them over to the local authorities. PAYNE described this as a "defensive Homeland Security function effort." While discussing this plan PAYNE said that it would require, "A Committee of Safety... to review what’s going on and then make the, the callout to the militia to perform the action." HUNT said that OMD ought to act like they’re avoiding the refugee issue. HUNT explained that publically OMD is defending individuals’ lives, liberty and property and never claimed to be defending the country. At the end of this discussion, RITZHEIMER agreed to send the other members the names and locations of three mosques and to follow-up in contacting people in Louisiana to look into the refugee situation there. The OMD Advisory Board agreed to not publically discuss the refugee issue. 84. Beginning at 1:30:10, the OMD Advisory Board discussed administrative matters. At 1:32:09, when discussing OMD background checks, HUNT said, ’Tve got a guy who is an administrator on the webpage and he’s not, ah, Ryan and I discussed this, but I’ve got a team, some teams that I work with for different things. And, do we need to bring them into Tier 2 or should, can we leave them out? Now he’s got access to the discussion page only. I’ve got Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 4O MNWR 0052556 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 41 of 91 another guy who is setting up the...webpage. Do they have to come in? Do we want them to come in, or can they remain out?" The OMD Advisory Board agreed that if the individuals that HUNT works with want to come into OMD then they will do the background check and be admitted into Tier 2; however, if they don’t want to become involved then they will remain as they are. HUNT said that at least two of the people on his team asked not to be involved with The Advisory Board. HUNT identified one of them as the administrator of the OMD discussion page. 85. The Advisory Board then discussed radio communications and brevity codes. FOLEY said that the brevity codes will have to be worked on when PAYNE and FOLEY meet in person in the coming future. At 1:41:40, PAYNE said, "Tim, on that note of, of heading down there, obviously, if the ah, HAMMONDS decide that they’re going to ah issue a request to us, then that, that may interfere with that trip as far as the length of it, um and all that, because I may end up, up there ah developing the defense course of action a little more in depth." 86. At 1:49:45, PAYNE said to the group, "It would be helpful if you guys can use your contacts, ah, whether you need to refer them to me, or, or whatever, ah, so we can start looking at response teams, um, outside of what I already have together. Ah, and ah, and we can start looking, I don’t know if we need to start looking regionally or what it needs to be but anyways, people we already know ahead of time will, will respond to an alert, ah, and are willing to work directly with us. That would be helpful." 87. At 1:53:15, the OMD Advisory Board discussed having another meeting prior to the regular Sunday meeting if anything new comes out of PAYNE’s meeting with the HAMMONDS scheduled for the upcoming Wednesday. FOLEY said that he may not be available for the next Sunday OMD Advisory Board meeting. PAYNE said that the Monday or Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 41 MNWR 0052557 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 42 of 91 Tuesday after Thanksgiving he would leave for Tim’s [FOLEY’s] location, stopping at the BUNDY’s on his way. PAYNE suggested that RITZHEIMER meet him at the BUNDY Ranch sometime around the 1.st. or 2nd [of December]. RITZHEIMER shared that he may not be able to meet PAYNE at the Bundy Ranch. PAYNE said that one of his purposes for going to the BUNDY Ranch is to get a "better feel for exactly where we’re at as far as provisions that are available." Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 42 MNWR 0052558 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 88. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 43 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151119 Special OMD AB meeting.mp3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Ryan PAYNE, Gary Hunt, Dennis DICKENSON, and Timothy FOLEY. This recording is approximately 1 hour, 3 minutes and 48 seconds long. At the beginning of this recording Ryan PAYNE took a call on his phone from what he described as a "Burns, Oregon number." DICKENSON identified the date and time as November 19.th at 8:48 p.m. Eastern Time. While waiting for PAYNE to return HUNT said that he and PAYNE spent about a week together and said that they had some interesting conversations. When PAYNE returned to the meeting he said that it was a Harney County commissioner that called him. The conversation during the meeting was centered on the HAMMOND situation, PAYNE’s meetings with the Harney County Sheriff and the HAMMONDS, and OMD’s concerns about the Pacific Patriot Network (PPN) and the Oath Keepers organizations. The following is a review of this recording. 89. At 0:02:12, PAYNE explained that there was a meeting prior to the meeting with the HAMMONDS, with Ammon BUNDY, five people from the Pacific Patriots Network (PPN), which PAYNE described as an organization that was tied to Oath Keepers leadership, gentlemen who were involved with organizations that make people aware of government overreach with respect to land use, and an author/historian who was there to document the meeting. PAYNE said that the goal for this meeting was to come up with a unified message to present to the HAMMONDS, to present them with "a unified agreement on protecting them in the event they decided to, ah, not turn themselves in for ah, for their sentence." PAYNE identified the PPN Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 43 MNWR 0052559 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 44 of 91 Intelligence Officer as Brooke (LNU), something like "Agrusta" or "Agrasta," as a participant at these meetings. PAYNE said that the PPN’s purpose was to pitch themselves versus establishing a unified command. PAYNE described Brooke as Brandon CURTISS’ wife. PAYNE identified CURTISS as the President of Idaho III%ers and one of the five founders of the PPN. 90. At 0:06:35, PAYNE began to discuss the meeting with the HAMMONDS. PAYNE said that they sat around a round table and discussed with them what it was that was being offered. Steven HAMMOND did not attend this meeting. PAYNE said that Dwight HAMMOND plans to serve his time and then get on with his life. PAYNE said that Dwight and Susan HAMMOND would be onboard with what was presented to them, but they’re not willing to make a stand without Steven. At 0:09:10, PAYNE said, "Dwight was talking, urn, being concerned with the same thing that Steven is and that he, he feels, he’s having a very hard time accepting that a very difficult situation and a, and a very tense situation may arise out of a decision that he makes. And so, I, I will, I made it very clear to him. And this was really the only point of dissention amongst everybody that was there. Ah, that he could feel that that weight has been lifted off of his shoulders because the American people are now becoming, ah, aware of his situation, of their family’s situation and that the American people have already express their sentiment that they’re going to see to it that the HAMMONDS are not oppressed further and ah, and that quite honestly that decision doesn’t’ rest with them anymore, that decision has already been made. And that the decision that that essentially they had to come to was whether they felt they needed direct protection if they chose to ah, to not turn themselves in. And, so they agreed with that and here’s where we get to ah, ah the point of dissention. Ah, Brooke was the one that voiced it and she said, ’I, I disagree with that. Ah, I feel like if the HAMMONDS do not make a stand, that basically we can’t be involved whatsoever, and ah, she Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 44 MNWR 0052560 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 45 of 91 went on pretty lengthily with that and somebody from within their own organization stopped her and ah, and basically agreed with me. He said that, ah, ’At, at this point we have to say that tyranny exists and we have to stop it and it really doesn’t, we can’t even put that weigh on the HAMONDS’ shoulders to make that decision. That the tyranny has to be stopped and we have to do whatever it takes to make that happen. It was the only point that appeared to be disunity in the entire conversation." At 0:11:55, PAYNE said, "Dwight said that he was sure that no matter what type of action was taken, ah, that they would definitely not come out against it would most likely support it. Um, and they were also sure that Steven would not come, he may be against it, he may not come out in support of it, but, but they were certain that he wouldn’t come out against it." 91. At 0:12:50, PAYNE talked about a second meeting held via conference call. Participants to this meeting included members of the Tea Party Patriots, other activist organizations, members of the PPN, PAYNE and A. BUNDY. PAYNE described a back and forth argument he had with members of the PPN during this meeting. According to PAYNE, the PPN wished for the HAMMONDS to file an appeal with the Supreme Court and pursue a legal remedy to aid the HAMMONDS. PAYNE said that he A. BUNDY’S told the members of the PPN that, "Pursuing things in the Supreme Court is going to produce nothing and it acknowledges a stance which we believe doesn’t exists. And so it’s not a method that should even be considered in, honestly." PAYNE said that the PPN members argued that if the HAMMONDS didn’t appeal then they would have to accept that they would be arrested by a "squad of U. S. Marshals." PAYNE said that he responded to this comment saying, "And we’re going to stop them from arresting them." PAYNE said that the members of the PPN said, "Any efforts like that are going to, can only result in aggression on the other side, which is going to Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052561 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 46 of 91 end up... in violence and end up poorly." PANYE said that A. BUNDY then began talking about the BUNDY Situation and members on the conference call downplayed the BUNDY situation to the HAMMONDS’ situation. PAYNE said that, "It was said, that it doesn’t quite honestly matter what your guys’ position is, the, the people are going to decide and some of us have already decided that they’re not going to jail." PAYNE said that members of the Tea Party Patriots asked for PAYNE to participate in another conference call, which PAYNE shared was going to occur after this OMD Advisory Board meeting. PAYNE said that the Tea Party Patriots wished to ask PAYNE more about what he’s trying to accomplish and how he plans to do it. 92. At 0:17:52, PAYNE talked about the meeting with the Sheriff. PAYNE said that all of the same people were at this meeting, with the addition of Joseph RICE. PAYNE said that RICE had a targeted approach, which PAYNE described as "we’re going to work within the system." PAYNE said that the Sheriff was presented with all their goals and intents and a petition to him to make the right decision. PAYNE said that the Sheriff told them that he received over 1000 emails about the HAMMOND situation. He also said that the Sheriff told him that the Feds have talked with him. PAYNE said that A. BUNDY told the Sheriff that he needs to get out and investigate the HAMMOND matter and the Sheriff agreed that he needed to make. The Sheriff told PAYNE that he has the decision to make that he is either going to defend the HAMMONDS, or not. PAYNE said that, "We made that point very clear to him that there’s no gray area, to not make a decision or to take a position of neutrality is to condemn the HAMMONDS and thus you will be taking the side of the government at that point." PAYNE said that, "Ammon, ah, furthered a conversation that him and I had and he told the Sheriff that he has, ah, till shortly after Thanksgiving to make his decision before some sort of movement is going to be initiated on the whole thing. And ah, it was made clear to the Sheriff that if he does Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 46 MNWR 0052562 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 47 of 91 not, if he decides that he is not going to stand with the HAMMONDS, that the people have decided to stand with the HAMMONDS and, and ah, we will do his job for him. His ah, really the only other point that he wanted to make was that he has told the Feds, everyone he’s met with, and the State prosecutor, excuse me, the ah, District Attorney and the State, ah, Attorney General, that he will not be having any ah, Federal force in his county, ah, to come kick doors or, or anything, he specifically said, ’we’re not going to have the Feds come in here doing what they did at the Bundy Ranch.’" PAYNE said, "So I made sure that he understood that that’s, that’s not necessarily enough, that the, that that protection needs to extend to the HAMMONDS specifically because.., if he does not step in then the HAMMONDS are going to feel like their, the Federal Government is infringing on his territory, his jurisdiction. And ah, he agreed with that. He said, ’from everything I’ve seen so far I agreed with that position’ and so that’s why he wants to review everything. Basically, and he, he was very heartfelt in what he was saying. He said, ’I understand where, where I’m at.’ He said that he, he feels ’a very large weigh a very large weight on his shoulders right now’ with the decision that he has to make and he’s considering the ramifications either way and he said that he’s not sleeping a whole lot right now. I told him, ah, you know, when he decides, when he makes the right decision and he decides to stand with the HAMMONDS that I’m confident that that will be the best night sleep that he, that he’s gotten since he became Sheriff. Just to try to take a little bit of the weight that’s on his shoulders, but definitely the goal there was to put the weight on him. Ah, at this point he can make, make a stand that will be recognized and will set a precedent across the country and it’ll empower other Sheriffs to, to make that stand as well and do their proper role as the protector of the people that’s in their county." PAYNE said that after that he had a private meeting with the Sheriff. PAYNE did not say any more about this. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 47 MNWR 0052563 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 93. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 48 of 91 At 0:24:05, PAYNE discussed his concern about the PPN. PAYNE said that during the meeting with the HAMMONDS and with the Sheriff, the PPN people made the point that if things were going to be pursued in the HAMMOND situation they would be leading it. PAYNE said the PPN offered their resources directly to the Sheriff. PAYNE said that the PPN people made other off-handed comments that PAYNE and A. BUNDY felt were directed at them. After the meeting, PAYNE told the Sheriff that he wanted to speak to him privately. The PPN people remained with the Sheriff and talked to him for approximately half an hour before PAYNE got to talk to him again. When PAYNE talked to the Sheriff privately, the Sheriff told him that the government told him that PAYNE wanted a "violent revolution" and that he wanted to "start a fight with the Federal Government," and that his group was "looking for a war." PAYNE said that the Sheriff eluded that the PPN people told the Sheriff the same thing about PAYNE. PAYNE said that his private meeting with the Sheriff went well. 94. At 0:31:37, PAYNE said, "The HAMMONDS, they said that they haven’t decided whether, he hasn’t decided whether he’s going to turn himself in or not. Ah, and so the decision on whether to provide personal protection for them is still up in the air. But I, I feel pretty confident that...we could start looking at courses of action on ah, how to affect their defense, ah, you know, indirectly. And ah, that they’re not going to speak out against it and and most likely they’ll come out and support it. The Sheriff is the other issue; we’re basically waiting on his decision. If ah, if the Sheriff, there again, if he decides that he’s not going to stand for the HAMMONDS, ah, then that is going to be the point where serious course of action, ah, discussion on what we actually want to do can start taking place." 95. At 0:35:21, PAYNE discussed his meeting with the Sheriff and the PPN again. He said, "It was Brooke again, who told the Sheriff, ’We want to stand behind you’ and ’We Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 48 MNWR 0052564 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 49 of 91 want to support you.’ And, you know, ’No matter what decision you make.., whether, it’s this way or that, we’re going to support you in that decision.’ And so I... cut her off and said, ’you know, that, that’s their opinion and that may be their opinion but...’ And the Sheriff at that point, that’s when he started the conversation, ’I know where you stand...where you guys are at.’ And so I told him specifically, ’If you do not stand with the HAMMONDS we will not support you. You will have placed yourself with the other side in saying I’m going to allow them to be arrested. At that point we will not support you and we will be ensuring that the HAMMONDS do not get arrested." At 0:37:31, PAYNE said, "Brandon CURTISS is ah, former law enforcement and he, he ah, made that point very well known. That his specific purpose in that organization is to talk with law enforcement entities where they go into and try to work with them as much as possible." HUNT said, "So we can expect to be on the opposite side from Oath Keepers somewhere along the line. Does Ammon understand that at this point?" PAYNE said, "That was the discussion that I had with him afterwards. I said, you know Ammon, I’m going to keep up this whole unity thing that you want to see. But you have to understand that their camp is not going to work with us and therefore your, that unity is going to fail at that point that that becomes obvious that they’re not going to work with us. And the other point is gonna be that, and Ammon is already feeling it, he said that he’s already feeling it, that there are not going to toe the hard line of defending the HAMMONDS if the HAMMONDS are not going to stand up and quite possibly if the Sheriff is not gonna stand up." HUNT said, "So the two problems we’ve got now are, one, Steven’s decision, you know, if he convinces his parents. When do we expect an answer on that?" PAYNE said, "There’ s not telling, we may never hear." HUNT said, "OK, and the other one is, ah, right now I see the Oath Keepers as the enemy. That antagonism makes it untenable. If the HAMMONDS did want us to come in and they wanted the Oath Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052565 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 50 of 91 Keepers to come in, as well, unless they agreed that all communication between all units come through the militia liaison, I think we’d have to back away. Because I’d hate to rest our reputation of OMD on Oath Keepers taking the camp by force so to speak." PAYNE said, "Yeah, I had that conversation with Ammon. Ammon has taken essentially the position of militia liaison at this point. And I kind of told him about that. That ah, at this point, you know with the fact that you’re the one who’s bringing all the entities into unity on this, you’re going to have to make sure that.., this authoritarian rule that they want to impose is not allowed to happen. So he has definitely said that ah if any entity tries to exert total control that he will not be allowing that. And he will also advise the HAMMONDS totally against it, as well." 96. At 0:40:45, FOLEY said, "So basically there’s what, ah, five, maybe six weeks left, before D-Day?" HUNT said, "Well, actually, if the HAMMONDS decide on a course of action and agree to work with us, or allow us to trespass on their property, ah, the Sheriff, six weeks from now, is inconsequential, right?" PAYNE said, "Right." HUNT said, "So we’d have to have their permission to be on their land. They’d have to give that. And that would be acquiescence and ah, if we had something in writing from them that we had permission to camp on their land or something like that then we would, at that point we would know and could begin planning. Otherwise, if they’re not willing to give us permission, I don’t know how we could stop ah, arrest." PAYNE said, ’Tm not exactly sure how that looks either, but that’s what has to be discussed." HUNT said, "In looking at the map they’re nearly surrounded, I don’t know if there’s any other out parcels that aren’t federal. But that’s all federal lands. We could encircle the ranch but that’s a large ranch, it’s what, a thousand acres or something?" PAYNE said, "Well, it’s not a ah... I think we need to look at other things, other avenues. If, if they’re not going to ah, to request the assistance. Not only that, but Steve and his wife live out at the ranch Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 5O MNWR 0052566 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 51 of 91 and Dwight and Suzy live in town, right, probably three blocks over from the Sheriff’s Department. They’re around [unintelligible] town, so you have that issue. I don’t know, if they’re not going to request assistance and then we have to look at another avenue of keeping them out ofj ail, then I think a separate avenue has to be, first off it has to be a covert protection, probably, ah, and it has to be based on quick reaction teams as far as I can see." HUNT said, "If they decide to go turn themselves in we’d have to kidnap them to stop it." PAYNE said, "You have two different things.., now we’re basing it on two different courses of action. If they still decide that they’re going to turn themselves in. Somehow the situation has to be created that...they can’t. Not because of their side, but because of the other side. A situation has to be created where the federal.., where they’re not going to be accepted when they turn themselves in." HUNT said, "If they’re supposed to turn themselves into the prison, for example, the prison’s armed, it’s got the towers around it, they’ve got automatic weapons. If...they got to the prison gates it would be almost impossible for us to discourage the prison from taking them, would be almost impossible." PAYNE said, "No, I think that a situation beforehand to where..." FOLEY said, "Well my thing is, if they accept, then you take the two that are living in town and put them on the ranch so that way you can provide all the family in a perimeter of security around and eliminate the two different.., two different operations." PAYNE said, "If they decide, you know, that they’re not going to be arrested I think that’s the situation that’ll probably happen." HUNT said, "Well I think it’s time for, you know, I’ve got some maps and I can get some Google of the property, ah, which would give you the topo.., the Google Earth coordinates on it. But I think it’ s time [unintelligible] for people start looking at the variables and see what they can come up with." PAYNE said, "The other issue I’m talking about, on that notion of the fence, we’re still talking about if they decide that they’re not going to turn themselves in. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 51 MNWR 0052567 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 52 of 91 Whether they want protection or not, you’re looking at courses of action on that." HUNT said, "If they’re not going to turn themselves in yeah, even if we can’t go on their property, I think it’s viable. It depends on how large their ranch is if they don’t give us permission to go on their ranch." PAYNE said, "But if they decide that they’re going to turn themselves in, I believe we still have a duty, we still have a responsibility to ensure that they’re not, that they can’t. Not, not necessarily by impeding them from doing it, but by impeding the other side from taking them." HUNT said, "Well, I need to have some idea. I can’t conceive how that can be done." PAYNE said, "Well we’ve already talked through one course of action which is obviously very aggressive...but I think those are the types of things that are going to have to be considered if we’re actually going to take that stance that the HAMMONDS are, are not going to serve another day in prison." HUNT said, "Well that’s where planning needs to, you know, come [unintelligible] various scenarios based on this, I think." FOLEY said, "And we need to start drawing something up, like, yesterday, since there’s only maybe six weeks left." PAYNE said, "Right, yeah, because anything that’s gonna have to happen ,we’re going to have to drum up, not only come up with an approved course of action, but then disseminate that course of action and get the support for it. And then allow time for movement, people are going to have to haul ass." FOLEY asked for grid coordinates for the HAMMONDS’ ranch and HUNT said he would get them out. 97. At 0:47:18, DICKENSON asked PAYNE if there will be an OMD mission in support of the HAMMONDS regardless of the HAMMONDS’ decision or the Sheriff’ s decision. PAYNE did not answer the question directly. HUNT said, "The unknown right now as far as the HAMMONDS is whether Steven would obj ect to our intervention." DICKENSON said, "But the discussion I’ve heard from Ryan are, it doesn’t matter whether the HAMMONDS agree or Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 52 MNWR 0052568 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 53 of 91 disagree, it just changes the course of action, there’s still an OMD mission." HUNT said, "I thought we decided that if they.., didn’t want us there that we would.., that was when we were, you know, we were three to two the other day. I would still continue to vote the same way. If he’s going to turn on us and say, no I didn’t want them here, then, you know, I still think that closes the door. I think participation on the HAMMONDS side with Oath Keepers is out of the question unless they’re willing to agree to, that we can’t share with them." PAYNE said, "That’s why I asked the HAMMONDS directly, what their position was as far as, you know, the feeling that it doesn’t really matter what their decision is, that, that, it’s going to be ensured that they’re not, don’t spend another day in prison. And they said that surely they’re not going to come out against it and that most likely they’d be in support of it." HUNT asked PAYNE, "That’s Susan and Dwight, what about Steven?" HUNT continued, "If he comes out against us being there and says I don’t want these people like...Kim Davis did, that’s the Door 3 scenario." At 0:51:48, PAYNE said, "I still find the notion that we’re going to allow them to... spend a day in prison contrary to why we exist." HUNT and FOLEY disagreed with PAYNE. HUNT said, "If they decide that they want to acquiesce to the law as it’s applied, that’s their choice, too." PAYNE said, "Yes, and it’s our duty then to step in and say the law is being misapplied we’re not going to allow you to do it." HUNT said, "I can’t go there...we cannot make.., somebody do something they don’t want to do because one of the consequences, quite simply, is the government can bring additional charges.., we don’t know what the consequences could be." PAYNE said, "That is why.., some type of something needs to be pursued to where the other side won’t even accept them if they tried to turn themselves in." FOLEY and HUNT discussed what an OMD mission would look like if the HAMMONDS decided not to turn themselves in but didn’t accept OMD’s support. FOLEY and HUNT discussed the challenges and questioned Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 53 MNWR 0052569 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 54 of 91 whether this would be a good OMD mission. At 0:55:22 FOLEY said, "My feeling is that they need to be behind it 100 percent. Which means allowing us on their property, saying no we’re not going...it is there right to say, screw it, I’m done, I’m going to jail. PAYNE said, "Well then I guess the way that I feel is that we don’t have the same goal. My goal is to stop tyranny. I quite honestly don’t care if the people want to, are going to submit themselves to tyranny, or not. My goal is to stop tyranny. HUNT said, "Your goal is to take somebody’s right of choice away." PAYNE said, "No, my goal is to stop tyranny." HUNT replied, "By taking somebody’s fights away, you’re forgetting..." PAYNE said, "Wrong. Wrong. Wrong." HUNT asked PAYNE, "Does the HAMMONDS don’t have a fight to make choice because Ryan decided so, is that what you’re saying?" PAYNE said, "They have the fight to go turn themselves [skipping] the fight to stand in front of that government and say, you’re not going to accept these people." 98. The OMD Advisory Board decided to cancel the next Sunday’s meeting and agreed to schedule a meeting when the board members were available. 99. A portion of this recording is duplicated in the file titled, "151119 Special OMD AB meeting For Gary." Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052570 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 100. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 55 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151129-Ol~ID- AB.mp3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Ryan PAYNE, Gary HUNT, Dennis DICKENSON, Jon RITZHEIMER and Timothy FOLEY discussing the HAMMOND situation. The BUNDY Standoff and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge were also discussed during this recording. This recording is approximately 1 hour, 7 minutes and 10 seconds long. PAYNE identified the meeting as the Operation Mutual Defense (OMD) Advisory Board meeting for November 29 at 11:00 Mountain Time. The following is a review of this recording. 101. At the beginning of the meeting PAYNE shared that after today he would be in Oregon working full-time and his time for OMD matters would be limited. 102. At 0:01:30, HUNT asked PAYNE if OMD wanted to reaffirm that OMD is not part of the HAMMOND situation. PAYNE provided an update on the HAMMOND situation. PAYNE said that that they now know that the Sheriff is passing information to, and actively working with, "the other side." PAYNE also discussed using a state law about force may be used in defense of another individual as long as an unlawful act of force is being put on them. PAYNE said that he had attorneys working on this "so the defense will be justified." 103. At 0:03:22, PAYNE said, "At this point the basic course of action is to get over there.., establish a quick reaction force and an over watch of the ranch and the house." PAYNE continued, "If the over watches happen to see...them coming in, as they have threatened to do, to arrest them early if they requested assistance or working with anybody." PAYNE said that Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052571 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 56 of 91 beyond that we have a flyer campaign going door-to-door to get a public meeting together so the issues can be presented to the people of the county. At that meeting PAYNE said that they had a few resolutions to be presented to the county board that will require the Sheriff to act in defense of the HAMMONDS. At 0:6:28, PAYNE said, "So that’s the idea, is to ah get the people, a movement of the people started up there and get them start exerting pressure on their elected officials, and which will basically culminate in whatever happens...the idea is to have all of this done a week before January 4.th. and put all of our faith and strength in each one of these endeavors. And then that gives us a week before the 4.th. to determine ah, you know, with all the people on the ground and anybody who wants to be involved what the, the specific course of action is going to be then and I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of conversation on the ground with people that are involved as to how that’s going to look. That’s basically where it sits." HUNT asked PAYNE about the HAMMONDS situation. PAYNE said the HAMMONDS are incommunicado and silent out of fear for their lives. 104. At 0:08:28, PAYNE discussed the role of the Oath Keepers and the Pacific Patriot Network (PPN). PAYNE said that some members of Oath Keepers told him that, "If and when this thing with HAMMOND goes into a situation where.., a tactical response is required, that they will be responding." PAYNE explained that this was Oath Keepers stance, not the PPN. PAYNE said that the Oath Keepers are trying to distance themselves from the Pacific Patriot Network (PPN). At 0:10:41, PAYNE said, "Quite honestly, it seems like Ammon and myself are the only ones who have a cohesive plan to move forward and Ammon wants to see unity between everybody on it, but as long as their...balls don’t drop then they’re not going to feel comfortable on moving forward on a brazen plan of action." HUNT said, "Unless things change drastically, and Ryan reports back with something that would move OMD to participate, we’re, Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 56 MNWR 0052572 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 57 of 91 ah, keeping our distance from it." DICKENSON said, "I’m willing to see about the plan when the time comes and make a decision then, so I’d like at least have Ryan brief OMD and give us an opportunity to take a second bite out of it." HUNT said, "Well that’s what I’m suggesting. At this point we’re where we were two weeks ago; however, if things chance and Ryan continues to report, OMD may jump in if circumstances warrant it." PAYNE said, "As far as it goes, I, I can tell you now that the HAMMONDS are not going to make a request. And... Suzy and Dwight have said that they won’t...would surely come out and support any type of action, but we have no such guarantee from Steven, so basically the decision is based on that, right? That we don’t know that Steven would come out against it? Ah... and so I don’t mind updating you. At some point I’m not going to be talking about any of it on the phone." HUNT said, "What I’m thinking about, thought, if the government decides to act against the patriots that have gathered in Burns and the surrounding area, ah, make a preemptive attack, that might be something that, I would think perhaps, depending on all the circumstances, that OMD might jump in. Not in defense of the HAMMONDS, but in defense of the patriots." RITZHEIMER said, "If something goes down and it turns into an ’us or them’ situation then absolutely we need to jump into that at that point. Because then we’re not defending the HAMMONDS, we defending Americans that are being [unintelligible] upon. So maybe we should keep something, or get something like that in the works as well though." HUNT asked, "Is everyone in agreement with that, if circumstances change and our defense is not in the HAMMONDS that it might be something that OMD would just in on? Then we need Ryan to keep us apprised of the circumstances on the ground, the actions of the feds to the extent that he can comfortably do so on the phone?" The OMD Board voted for HUNT’s proposed course of action, with PAYNE abstaining. PAYNE said, "So as far as that goes, then ah, you guys want to be kept in the loop on the HAMMOND Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 57 MNWR 0052573 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 58 of 91 situation enough to make a determination as to whether or not there will be an OMD alert to... support the people that gather, ah, to defend the HAMMONDS, but not to defend the HAMMOND S. Am I correct?" HUNT said, "I think that’s where we’re going, yeah.., if the patriots that have gathered in Burns and the surrounding area in defense of the HAMMONDS are attacked by the government, we’re not defending the HAMMONDS, we’re defending the patriots who are defending the HAMMONDS. I know that there’s a stretch there but I think that it makes a big difference to me and..i think to the other members of the board that if, you know..." PAYNE cut HUNT off and said, "I get it. When we’re dead or in prison, then, ah, we’ll issue an alert. Got it." PAYNE asked to move onto the next OMD issue. HUNT said, "If they move troops in facing you, not the HAMMONDS, I mean, I don’t know what they’re going to do, Ryan. You don’t either. The whole thing is if they’re the provocateurs. If they become the provocateurs in this against patriots then there’s a cause for OMD." PAYNE said, "You see, I’m already going out on a limb by even talking about it on an opened line of communication in the first place. Because, of the threat that they have...if they feel that anybody’s going to become involved, they’re going to arrest them early. See, so our, our, the idea is get in there and gather whether or not we can even get a public uprising of the people within that county. Ah, and basically try to be undetected in doing so. This idea has not been thrown around very much. There’s not a whole lot of people that are completely aware of it. And ah, there’s not a whole lot of people.., that we’re asking to come at this moment. Only people that are going to be effective in that first, hard course of action. And also just enough people to prevent them being arrested if they do decide to come and get them early. You know, I’m opened." HUNT said, "You know, you’re trying to bring two other elements involved.., there’s a number of irons in the fire right now that could change the whole situation." HUNT went onto say, "if the nature on the ground Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 58 MNWR 0052574 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 59 of 91 changes.., it could be something that we’re not going where we’re wanted and somebody other than the HAMMONDS has sought help.., whether it be the patriots because the government surrounded them and threatening to arrest them, whether the county takes the position, whether the state takes the position, any one of those three could be elements that would change the nature of where our defense was not of the HAMMONDS, it was the county, the state, or the patriots.., and you’ll see movement on the ground before there’s any action. So when they bring in the National Guard or anything, those are the indicators that something’s going to happen...Waco took awhile to build up." PAYNE said that there may not be a lot of time to keep OMD updated. 105. At 0:21:05, HUNT spoke about RITZHEIMER’s trip to New Hampshire. HUNT said that the press called him "American Taliban" and that he is working on an article that will clear the air. RITZHEIMER spoke about his road trip to the East Coast. RITZHEIMER also spoke about the FBI visiting him at his home. PAYNE cautioned RITZHEIMER in talking to the FBI. RITZHEIMER said that he recorded the conversation with a GoPro. 106. At 0:35:44, PAYNE said that he plans to leave for Oregon early the next morning and he would remain there "until it looks like there’s going to be no movement," or "until we succeed in what we’ve set out to do." PAYNE told FOLEY that after the Oregon situation he plans to meet with FOLEY and work out an OMD training plan. 107. The OMD Board discussed FOLEY’s operations in Arizona. 108. At 0:44:33, PAYNE addressed the "Melissa DIEGEL" situation. PAYNE said that he is unwilling to make a medical determination. PAYNE asked for more time to finish his review of the DIEGEL information and get back to her. 109. At 0:47:07, FOLEY introduced a situation concerning a lady in Oklahoma that is Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 59 MNWR 0052575 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 60 of 91 similar to DIEGEL’s complaint. FOLEY said that he would do more digging into the case. PAYNE asked FOLEY to send out that information to the OMD e-mail address. At 0:50:46, PAYNE said, "Outside of Burns, I don’t have any coverage. And the HAMMOND ranch is 60 miles outside of Burns, urn, so very, very little coverage. But when I do get coverage I can download whatever documents are put out there and I can review them." 110. At 0:51:05, RITZHEIMER asked PAYNE, "You’re going to the HAMMOND ranch?" PAYNE said, "Not on the HAMMOND ranch, particularly, ah, because we’re not, because we have no request, but near it. The HAMMOND ranch is surrounded by public lands." At 0:51:35, PAYNE continued, "We have basically the same issue as the, ah, the Bundy Ranch. The Malheur Wildlife Refuge, ah, it started with Theodore Roosevelt and the whole National Parks system. Apparently, what was uncovered by Suzy HAMMOND, was, ah efforts by the Federal Government to, they started reacquiring land that they had already dispensed with, urn, forcing people off the land, purchasing it, offering up lucrative offers. A lot of people stayed there until it was just economically impossible to do so and of course the government puts itself as first buyer, so. They’ve been expanding this land for this wildlife refuge, Malheur Wildlife Refuge, for quite a long time now. And ah, the HAMMONDS are one &very few ranchers that are left in the area, just like the BUNDYS. And once they have that land then they seal it off again.., and all of the studies are there, to show the mismanagement of the BLM. That the people being on the land and working it and cattle grazing and all that stuff was highly beneficial. There’s been huge migrations of the wildlife away from the Malheur Wildlife Refuge because of the lack of people working the land and keeping it up, so. Urn, it’s just another one of those things. Land is power and control and they’re, they’re doing it again." RITZHEIMER said, "I really wish that they were willing to take a stand, you know? I just, I do... all of us are, Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 6O MNWR 0052576 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 61 of 91 our thoughts are definitely up there with you, dude. And I don’t want you to, you know? I know you’re definitely probably not happy with ah, our approach with things right now. I sense that..." PAYNE said, "It’s not that I’m not happy with it, and I understand what you guys are saying, ok? It has more of a sense of duty that I feel, which is that I don’t expect them to make a request.., if they’ve been beaten into submission. They’ re in fear for their lives and if they’ re fear for their lives that they’re not going to make a request. And they don’t, they don’t believe that the patriot community is such that it can remove that fear. So, there’s no expectation that they would make a request. And so, quite honestly I don’t expect them to. But that doesn’t mean that I still don’t feel a sense of duty to defend uphold my oath." 111. At 0:54:57, RITZHEIMER asked, "What if OMD organized a show of force just a, you know, and then there’s a thousand patriots right there in front of their ranch, just armed, just to show them that we’re there, that we support them." PAYNE told RITZHEIMER that a show of force was an element of the BUNDY Ranch. PAYNE told RITZHEIMER that a militia member spoke to an officer with the Las Vegas Metro Police Department who told the militia member that he was tasked to report to Sheriff Gillespie the number of militia and protestors on scene at the protest site before the Sheriff arrived to speak with Mr. Bundy on the same morning as the unrustlling. PAYNE said that the Metro Police Officer told the militia member that, "As soon as he rounded the corner and saw what was gathered there, that it was the most fear that he had ever been in his life. There were hundreds of, of militia, which were keeping protection over thousands of protestors. And as far as the standoff itself, the militia presence, so everybody left the protest site to go to the, where the BLM compound was, where they were holding the cattle. The militia effort was kept first off, ah, the people that were um, not in uniforms but had firearms with them, ah, were asked to maintain, ah, a totally civilian presence amongst the protestors. So Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 61 MNWR 0052577 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 62 of 91 quite a few of those protestors that you’re seeing in the, those videos are actually militia guys, but there purposefully there to look like protestors and ah..." RITZHEIMER cut PAYNE off and said that, "I know and I’ve seen it. The numbers, you know, what was it, a thousand people there? I just think that it needs to be bigger. It needs to be bigger and..." PAYNE cut RITZHEIMER off and said, "Let’ s say that there was anywhere between three and five hundred and we know that there was at least three because that’ s what was there initially. There’ s a lot of people who arrived that morning and were on the.., freeway running towards the whole thing .... quite honestly all of the pictures that I’ve seen are all from the overpass where there was only a, a scattered few guys. Most of the guys were either on the front overpass staring directly down at the BLM, or they were on the side where nobody was filming anything. Um, and then there was counter sniper positions put out on the, ah, the BLM’s positions. So, it was a total lockdown, but quite honestly it was beautiful in the sense that it sure does look like a lot more of a movement of peaceful citizens then it did an actual militia effort. You know a lot of people that were there didn’t understand quite the extent of the effort, ah, but the BUNDYS surely know about it. Um, and a lot of the people that, that were there for numerous days know, because they got to see the, the militia coming in and out and all of that type of stuff, moving out from this OP to that OP... all that type of stuff. Anyway, it was there and it was surely enough that there would not have been much of a fight. And that’s essentially why they backed down. Once Metro, Metro came in and inserted themselves and told the BLM that had to leave, um Ryan BUNDY’s up on the overpass pointing out where all these militia positions are, saying, ’This thing’s going to get nasty very quickly.’ And that’s when it, when it ended up getting broken up. As far as the HAMMOND situation, I don’t know... I agree, and if, if a massive presence could be built up then that is the route that’s going to be pursue, quite honestly. Except we would like Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 62 MNWR 0052578 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 63 of 91 to get a public sentiment, a gauge of the public sentiment first, um, so we can get an up, uprising of the people within that county. And once we have that, ah, then they can make requests which are going to help legitimize what we do, as far as the defense of the HAMMONDS." RITZHEIMER asked PAYNE to keep OMD posted. At 0:59:44, RITZHEIMER said, "As of right now, even if it doesn’t, if it’ s not an OMD ah, ordeal, but I hear that, you know, militia men or, or troops are planning on headed that way, which is the feeling that I’ve already been seeing through social media and through other sources, that, ah, you know, I, I’m probably going to have to head up that way and follow my heart." At 1:00:08, PAYNE said, "At this point... Ammon and I have both some people that we’ve been talking to, um, has been, we’re going to start it out very low key. Basically I’m going in with a ah, an initial party to do some fact finding and, and some ah, setting up of the ground. Um, you know, getting, getting things to where they, we have, we can put together a cohesive plan, rather than just at this point what’s a tentative course of action. Um, and then once that starts to happen. We already have quite a few folks who are on standby for the word that things are in place and then they will roll in pretty ugly and we’ll see where things go from there." RITZHEIMER asked PAYNE what the living situation would be like if he were to come to Oregon to help in the first week of December. At 1:01:34, PAYNE said, "I stay in a hotel when there’s other people that are staying there and they have an extra spot. I have zero funds as far as that goes. So no, I camp. Um, and ah, I’ll be camping. Initially when I get down there I’m going to take a drive straight down to where to the ranch is and I’m gonna start getting the lay of the land type of thing. And ah, comparing the public access to what’s private and then just getting that setup and then, that’ll probably be Wednesday. And then ah... Thursday through Sunday I’ll send the rest of the time in Burns. Ah, Burns is really the only population center in that county. Um, so all of the effort can be focused Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 63 MNWR 0052579 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 64 of 91 there as far as that goes." At 1:03:18, PAYNE said, "Part of what I’m gonna do is establish a hard-site. So that ah, people coming in the area, its’ fairly out of the way.., anybody who’s in the know is gonna know why we’re there, but ah, it’ll be far enough out of the way that they can’t directly [unintelligible]." At 1:04:54, HUNT said, "Well I think Ryan... it’s safe to say at least from where I am, that you have my moral support, but not OMD support just so we’re clear on that." 112. At the close of the meeting, the OMD board agreed that they would have the next OMD meeting "next Sunday." PAYNE discussed a desire to participate as much as possible in OMD with his extra time. At 1:05:52, PAYNE said, "Part of what’s going to bring people there [to Burns, Oregon in response to the HAMMOND situation] is that there are people on the ground doing things. Ah, and, so you know that’s, that’s part of my effort is once I get there and get that established then.., there’s already so many other people.., that are talking about making their way up there, they j ust want to know what the lay of the ground is, so if there was somebody else to do that I would have a lot more time to put handling that task takes up my time. On the other side of that, I’ll still be putting whatever extra time I do have into keeping apprised on OMD stuff." Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 64 MNWR 0052580 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 113. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 65 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151206-OI~ID-AB meeting.rap3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Gary HUNT, Ryan PAYNE and Dennis DICKENSON. This recording is approximately 1 hour, 6 minutes and 28 seconds long. At the beginning of this recording Ryan PAYNE identified the meeting as the Operation Mutual Defense Advisory Board meeting for Sunday, December 6, 2015. The conversation was centered on the HAMMOND situation in Harney County, Oregon. Specifically discussed in this recording are PAYNE’s efforts to rally the support of the HAMMONDS among the people of Harney County and PAYNE’s plans to put together a forceful operation when that fails. PAYNE also discussed the National Wildlife refuge. Below is a more complete review of this recording. 114. At 0:00:51, PAYNE addressed HUNT and DICKENSON. At 0:01:10, PAYNE said, "Gary, you’ve put a lot more effort into ah, I know what you view as, molding me into, ah the most effective personality in, in my positions. And Dennis, I appreciate the trust...that you’ve put into this entity.., and it’s possibility for effect. I don’t believe that the.., focus of this entity given our.., developing situation, ah, can be permitted to be as narrow as we have, have ah formed it to be. Urn, I... believe at this point now, that we have, we’ve been attacked numerous times, preemptively. We, we’re been attacked, ah, openly and disgustingly. And...ifyou’ve been paying attention to the news the deal on San Bernardino has put a veil over many of the other things that are going on, ah, along the same light of domestic terrorism, um all over the country. There’ s been four or five different things that have happened since the.., events there in Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 65 MNWR 0052581 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 66 of 91 San Bernardino. And also the information that’s coming out from the FBI and different entities.., alluding to operations on a grander scale. And what I’m getting at here, it would definitely appear that the game is afoot now. And ah, I’m going to say, ah, personally, I know that, that others have felt this for a long time. That we are in a state of war and we are in a state of nature. We’re in a state of war, ah, given that the enemies are clearly defined and that they have taken action against us at this point, against the people. One of those entities has been taking action against the people for quite a period of time and ah, and that enemy is, was birthed by the people and has ah, molded its purpose into something that, people who established this union knew that it could form into and gave us provision to protect against, ah should it becomes that. I believe that this is the most poignant of the two enemies having taking action against the people. The other one is obviously radical Islam. And ah, in order to combat this threat it requires ah, quite a different approach than the other one. And that approach is going to have to be much more local.., and smaller unit focused. But information is going to be the key and sharing of information.., with those smaller units who do take it upon themselves to move against that.., enemy. The bigger problem is, that the other enemy, the first one I mentioned, is the root of all the problems. It’s the root of all the problems within our own borders and it’s the root of many problems throughout the world. And the longer we allow this problem to persist and grow in strength and power and exert its influence over the people ,in the union and without, then the greater our fault in allowing it to do so...there’s no easy way to go about this but, the core of what I’m driving at here is that, in a state of war a body such as this ,which is reactive and which focuses on specific events, as opposed to a broad spectrum of actions has to necessarily morph itself to meet the demands of the changing scenario... I’m asking that each of us, and ah, and even those who are going to listen to this later, begin to call upon their relationships, call upon Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 66 MNWR 0052582 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 67 of 91 their contacts, those with the knowledge of how to proceed in light of what it is that’s being laid out, um, with strategic knowledge and planning ability to address all these issues, ah, on a greater spectrum. And to being that down to a more narrow topic. It really needs to start at the.., grassroots level. That level from which everything grows, which is the individual and the individual’s community.., we can’t expect people from all over the ah, union, to, when there’s so much danger at home, difficultly at home, um direct threats right in their own back yard. Be willing to pick up and travel across the country, excuse me, across the union, in order to ah, answer the threats.., that are effecting the individual. And those that do have felt the particular calling.., and they’re answer it regardless. What we need to focus on is fortifying the individual communities so that people can become aware of how they can begin to take action in their own yard and, and correct these problems and defend themselves. So what I’m asking for is that, we begin the process of creating the body of, of people that are knowledgeable in how to proceed. And without getting into too much detail I think you know exactly what it is that I’m talking about. So I know that...what I’m pursuing up here in Oregon is a microcosm of the greater issue...but it is a...pretty poignant mark and I don’t just mean the HAMMONDS themselves, I mean the intrusion of the Federal Government into every aspect of these people’s lives. And I’m going to use it, this microcosm to illuminate the greater pictures. This ah, this county was once very prosperous. There was a booming community and a booming...land mass in its entirety. It had two great industries, logging and ranching, which promulgated its boom. There used to be 60,000 head of cattle running...in this valley here. And now I’ve heard numbers of 20-25,000, I’ve even heard 15,000. And there’s virtually no logging that is done in this county whatsoever anymore. Ah, both of these things, the decimation of both of these industries, and thus the former economy of this county are caused by federal regulation, federal intrusion, and federal Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 67 MNWR 0052583 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 68 of 91 insertion of themselves into both of those industries. Now to further this invasion from an outside entity, they have also, there’s been an importation of entitlement folks in here. And once.., those other two industries were virtually destroyed, one of them almost.., to very little impact economically in the county and the other one in its entirety, in destroyed completely. There became obviously an exodus from this area to others in order to... seek...what we can see is in line with Agenda 21 and such, the idea is to drive people out of the rural areas and into the large population centers where they can be more easily controlled. And in replacement of those productive and industrious folks, there’s been an almost importation of the entitlement folks and there’s a very clear delineation in this county between the two and an animosity growing between the two. This is the case all over, in every state. In almost every rural area. Industry is being destroyed and people who feed off of the system are being imported. And so now, if you subtract the...very wealthy ranchers.., who offset the income ratio drastically, if you take those.., very wealthy ranchers out of the picture and you look at the economy of Harney County, it is mostly influenced by outside entities. The money is being imported from all over the country through.., taxes and such and redistribution of wealth through these entitlement entities. For instance, all of the loggers.., are now BLM firefighters and government workers. A lot of the ranchers have become refuge employees on the, ah, National Wildlife refuge here, which is the ah, I believe is the second or third largest in the.., entire union. And so effectively they have created a rift where the people are now turned against each other. In the interest of securing their.., own sustenance these people have had to sought j obs.., and purposefully the Federal Government has inserted themselves to... give those j obs to people, to create work. And as we know the work is the work of oppression and tyranny. The idea is to drive the people off the land and they’re using the people within the, the local themselves in order to accomplish this, Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 68 MNWR 0052584 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 69 of 91 which turns brother against brother. Down, even narrowing the spectrum of this microcosm, the HAMMONDS issue itself in my... research here over the past few days, I find about 50% of who I talk to, to be an utter and complete support of the HAMMONDS. Most people don’t know they’ve been convicted of an Anti-terrorism... Act. Nobody considers them to be terrorists, even those who.., aren’t in support of them don’t consider them to be terrorists. Everyone I’ve talked to has a high regard for the HAMMONDS." PAYNE then went on to talk about one individual who had an unfavorable opinion of the HAMMONDS. At 0:16:25, PAYNE continued, "So the other fifty percent of the people, of the population here is either government workers, who won’t talk to you, and have been specifically instructed not to speak with us, government employees, or apathetic people. The people that they don’t give a damn one way or the other and quite honestly with the.., entitlement folks that have been ushered in here and.., taken advantage of here as industry went away, it’s easy to see that a lot of that 50% is going to be people who are never going to be involved in anything whatsoever anyway, except for feeding off the system. What I’m getting at is, as those other 50% of those who are apathetic or employed by the entity that has caused the destruction in this county. If they were to see their brethren on the other half start to stand up and voice their opinions and not only voice their opinions but.., make their actions to regain control of their county known, I’m of the firm believe that, that 50% would turn into a much lower number and be grafted into those in support of returning sovereignty to this place. And this microcosm demonstrates what exists all over the union and, I know the numbers are probably different in a lot of other places but the key is if we don’t start to free these people from the hand of oppression on a larger scale. Focusing on individual liberty and fostering unity around that idea. If we don’t begin to address these issues on a larger scope then the ability of... our two enemies to capitalize on our lack of unity is going to overshadow any effort that Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 69 MNWR 0052585 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 70 of 91 we... take in the future, given our responsive nature." HUNT responded to PAYNE’s comments and said that there are other people throughout the country that are willing to stand with those that are willing to stand with them. HUNT said that if something were to go wrong OMD would be responsible if they acted independently. At 0:20:36, HUNT said, "As far as building.., getting...the community effort and all this together, when you were here and we were working and we were over halfway through.., putting together the... PowerPoint presentation that would build that, would get the unity, would get people organized.., first the places visited and second it would carry over to other communities around them and could spread like wildfire. Ah, as far as, creating a foundation that was.., fully functional, in terms of responding to something like the HAMMOND Ranch... or anything else.., the Committees of Safety and The Plan. You know, that is the means of getting it back.., a single fire.., even if you put the fire out what effect is it going to have? The government is still going to take rancher’s lands, or try and take rancher’s lands and when rancher’s ready to stand against it we’ll stand with them. But Committees of Safety is really instrumental when people realize.., and key element of the Committee of Safety is when people realize they are in a state of nature and they have become their own government and they’ve shed off the shroud of... encroaching administrative federal agencies. But until the people feel that they’ve got the ability, in a self-governing country, to govern themselves, you’re fighting an uphill battle. So what is more important? Is it more important to get that road trip out and going, or is it more important to fight a fire...where they don’t want you to fight the fire for them. So when you look at priorities...you can’t fight a war until you build an army. The effort, the road trip, is to build an army. Once that army is built you can fight a war. That’s my response to what you’ve said." At 0:23:01, PAYNE said, "Maybe I can narrow it down, where... I’m going with this and where I think that efforts should Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 7O MNWR 0052586 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 71 of 91 be placed. I’m no general...and I’m not a colonel. In the capacity I’m serving now, I’m barely a sergeant. And when things start to ramp up maybe you could attribute some, maybe a captain status to the function that I can perform. But I don’t have the experience...nor the persona, to be a general. I, I can’t build an army. What I can do, and what I do do, and what I am doing, is I can get on the ground and I can speak.., directly to them in a manner which gives them hope, hope that has been crushed. And that hope comes with the knowledge...that enough people that will come and support them if they decide to make that stand themselves, also but the idea is to rally the community. At 0:24:39, PAYNE said, "I agree that... The Plan, the Committees of Safety, and.., getting that knowledge out there is important, but I’ve already started that process here in talking to these people about forming.., another body and putting together town hall meetings.., we have a pretty comprehensive course of action already being pursued." HUNT interrupted PAYNE, "When that Committee of Safety asks... OMD to back them in their position, I will, you’ve got me 100% at that point because we’ve been invited... I mean, you’ve got the county, and your state, either one of them could call, the HAMMONDS wont, so you got the county and you got the state. If either one of them gets to a position where they want to resist the Federal Government in what they’re doing to the HAMMONDS then we go to help the county or the state. We can’t go help the HAMMONDS because they don’t want us. It is very simple. I think last meeting I said the same thing, if you could get the county or the state to go for it, then issue the call, then that gives legitimacy. At Concord they sent riders out, at Lexington they sent riders out, asking for help. And they got the help. You know, I’m basing my perception of the whole thing on history, you know." At 0:26:17, PAYNE said, "Well I think that’s my point.., my utility especially in that I’ve chosen to take up this specific fight, I’m very well aware what’s going on in other places and, and ah, although, 90% of my times is going Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 71 MNWR 0052587 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 72 of 91 into my tasks here... I am spending the other 10% of that time coordinating with people all over about the other issues. And there’s been a lot of discussion and there’s been a lot of unity coming together. And the unfortunate part of that is that the unity is building around the individuals and not their.., entitles because they have the same issues that we have here. The organizations are protecting themselves and it’s the individuals that are stepping out and pursuing what needs to be done. And... given my... focus, what you’ve called an obsession on this particular case...because, having removed myself from the duty of the OMD response coordinator and made myself essentially a freeman’s response coordinator in this. That task is all encompassing and requires all my efforts. So, what I’m getting at is...I’m not a general. I don’t sit back on a chair and talk to advisors and.., all these folks about.., what’s going on here and there and...make decisions based on that. I dove myself directly into the issue .... and I focus on it and I try to get a grasp on it and rally people around it. That specific issue. I can speak to the greater spectrum of things, but I’m not sure what my utility is in them, other than after this is wrapped up, my intention is, I have to... get some.., money back.., so I can get back on the road and start to pursue this, you know, dissemination of The Plan. But at this point this is what’s going on with myself and.., a lot of other people are already on alert to respond when it’s necessary.., and that’s what I’m asking you guys for. Dennis... given your former occupation, you.., have to know the people that can help in these efforts. And... whether or not they believe in... the people’s side of it, or they.., believe in the legitimacy of the government to handle such things. At least the time is now to start having those conversations about how to go about it. And we all have a range of people that we can talk to about bringing together and unifying a strategy and.., those efforts are taking place right here. One thing that the Bundy Ranch taught me was that and event like that brings together the leaders. The leaders are the ones who show Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 72 MNWR 0052588 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 73 of 91 up. The leaders are the ones who.., put their face in there, or are involved throughout that process from afar." At 0:30:10, HUNT said, "There were leaders in the Boston Massacre, too. Don’t forget that." HUNT continued, "Now that I’ve got the coordinates, in looking at that, you don’t even have cover out there...that’s going to be hard to develop a plan to do that, ah, not having access to the Ranch." PAYNE said, "On the contrary, the Ranch is the worst place to mount that defense. And looking on the ground and driving through it and walking on the ground, I have not seen a more defensible location.., against anything but the air.., a more defensible location doesn’t exist .... there’s pinch points, there’s high ground with.., very good line of sight. OCOKA gives all of the advantage to the defender on that ground." [Writer Comment: OCOKA is a U.S. Military acronym for evaluating a defensive position and stands for ’Observation and Fields of Fire,’ ’Cover and Concealment,’ ’Obstacles,’ ’Key or Decisive Terrain,’ and ’Avenues of Approach’] HUNT responded asking, "Now...how are you going to defend if...the HAMMDONS get in a truck and drive to the prison?" PAYNE said, "You don’t. You don’t. But there’s one thing that...we have enough assurance of, to feel very comfortable in...that scenario right there and that is that the family... I’m going to give it a 95% assurance, that the family will not come out against any efforts to assist their cause that they support. And I have a... very good feeling that if they saw the support and started to feel the support from their community that they would...be fortified to j oin the stand themselves." At 0:32:25, HUNT said, "I know you can’t talk about plans on the phone, but, ah, still it comes back to unless somebody asks OMD that has an interest in it, not Ammon BUNDY, not Ryan PAYNE, but the HAMMONDS, the county, or the state, I still see no way. I mean there are plenty of events. One that may be coming up is Red River, you know, but that’s apparently back in court and I think they’ll lose on that." HUNT continued, "Let’s go back to BUNDY Ranch, what happened Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 73 MNWR 0052589 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 74 of 91 when the shared command acme into place? Things sorted out. The conflicts disappeared, some of the conflicts. The idea of OMD now with the board is the same thing. It doesn’t keep you from acting as a freeman doing what you’re doing. But ah, as far as OMD, the board...is the heart of this thing and the brain of this thing and it’s gotta be at least a majority.., it’d be better if it was unanimous." HUNT continued, "Now like I told you, I’ll cover the story as long as I’m provided information but I can’t give the background, and I’m in the same place and we’ve got time now and I still can’t get the background on this." HUNT went on to explain that the Antiterrorism Act was misapplied in the case of the HAMMONDS, such as with MASSEY, BEACHER and WOLF. At 0:35:02, Hunt said, "These things happen and they’ve got to stop, but if we’re going to stop them we’ve got to have the best situation we can, which is we’re going to help somebody that asks for our help." 115. At 0:35:25, DICKENSON asked PAYNE what he needed as far as support. PAYNE replied, "What I’m specifically asking for is not anything for me, Dennis. What I’m asking for is for the cause itself. Is for the.., idea itself... I think I outlined a few minutes ago that it’s.., a difficult position and it’ s... quite honestly putting yourself into a dangerous position. I understand that given your former affiliation and level of involvement with.., that entity. I understand that it’s dangerous. But unless we start putting ourselves out, way out of our comfort zone, in starting to rally the correct individuals to bring their weight to bear on... the entire situation, not just this one, then I don’t think that we’re putting our true faith in the cause that we say that we believe in. What it is that...I’m specifically asking for is to...begin to go outside and.., seek unity from the people that you know that can bring the effect into what needs to be accomplished." PAYNE provided examples of things DICKENSON can do to personally to further their cause. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 74 MNWR 0052590 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 116. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 75 of 91 At 0:40:39, PAYNE said, "Another thing to look at, Dennis... as just a, I’m going to call it a practice.., like JRTC, a real world planning scenario.., the feasibility of, and therein the man power requirements and the.., logistical requirements for replacing.., lets use this county for this exercise.., for replacing that entity.., that is the problem here with the people of Harney County and supplemented by those that will come to support them. And by that I mean all of them, all of those entities." HUNT then asked PAYNE for details about the HAMMONDS’ allotment and their two trials. PAYNE said that the information hasn’t been passed to HUNT for a variety of reasons. HUNT said that he would prefer not to further discuss the HAMMOND situation as long as he was being kept in the dark. 117. At 0:45:49, PAYNE and DICKENSON talked about public interest going from the HAMMOND situation to the "Islamic problem." PAYNE referenced conspiracy theories and said that he and people that are like-minded see the beginning of that [the Islamic problem, previously they spoke about the San Bernardino attacks] as "a purposeful insertion in order to try and divert us." At 0:47:59, PAYNE said, "As far as the information campaign goes, you know the media part of this, is to refocus everybody that, yes we do have to address the direct threat, that.., radicals pose, but to make sure we keep our focus on... from where those enemies are.., gaining their strength and their facilitation for them to even be where they are to do what they’re doing. And that is really who the enemy is. The others are just agents of the enemy." At 0:48:56, PAYNE began talking about an information campaign that would be put into place over the next month that included a broad regional message and a local and specific message about the HAMMONDS and Harney County situations. PAYNE said that their message would be inserted into the main stream media. PAYNE discussed the use of advertisements, social media and targeted articles. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 75 MNWR 0052591 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 118. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 76 of 91 At 0:51:58, Dennis DICKENSON said, "And obviously, the deadline as I understand it, is still 4 January?" PAYNE replied, "Correct... where our.., goal is to have the rally of public support here reach its apex at least a week before the 4.th..’’ HUNT asked PAYNE if his operation had a name 119. At 0:56:03, PAYNE began to describe a two-pronged approach to gain public support of the HAMMONDS, which involved a public meeting and a flyer campaign. PAYNE continued that the purpose for this approach was to get the public to flood a county board meeting, "so that the county board can pass a resolution first to call forth an evidentiary review.., of the entire case. And then a second resolution to require that the Sheriff provide a sanctuary for the HAMMONDS while that evidentiary review is taking place and if the Sheriff will not uphold that.., requirement by the people, that the people perform that, giving that sanctuary themselves. And then ah, the goal is to get the county board to pass that. Once again...the effort is also being started up, that if the county board, no matter what, what’s being pursued here is that we’re going to illuminate the failures of the government at every level by giving them.., ample opportunity to respond in the way that they should. But at the same time, planning for them not to uphold it and for the people to ultimately take up that task.., that’s the outline, kinda, of what we’re doing." 120. At 0:58:04, PAYNE said that he’s spoken to the County Commissioners and neither was supportive of the resolutions. PAYNE said that the Commissioners were among the 50% of people that somewhat support the HAMMONDS but apathetic about their situation at this point. PAYNE said, "That’s why the movement of the people needs to be created in order to force them to show their cowardice or their uprightness." 121. At 0:59:15, DICKENSON and PAYNE generally discussed personnel and Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052592 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 77 of 91 resources. At 0:59:39, DICKENSON said, "Cause this thing could, like the Bundy thing, maybe go for awhile?" PAYNE responded, "Yes...that’s part of the reason that I... asked you for that.., planning exercise to look at what I was talking about...because in the event of... an extended operation you.., can see how that’ll be a key. Those resources that already exist can be taken advantage of, ah, given the scenario I laid out for you." DICKENSON asked, "So... the scenario would basically to be taking over the entire county infrastructure for a period of time?" PAYNE responded, "Not the county infrastructure, but one particular entity’s infrastructure.., but there again, the reason that it’s an exercise, is ’cus that it’s going to rely on the people. And ah, I know that we can put together the, ah, you know, force to make it happen. The, the key is that...you know, you don’t want to be sitting out there, you’re going to be looking at Waco again or something like that if you’re sitting out there in a compound and the people aren’t in support of you." 122. At 1:01:30, PAYNE talked about the "Radical Islam" issue and the course of action that he’s sent out regarding the refugee situation. PAYNE said that he’s been asked numerous times over the past week for a plan. PAYNE suggested that OMD develop a cohesive plan for the small units to take action themselves. 123. At 1:03:11, the Advisory Board discussed holding their next meeting on Wednesday at 7:00, Eastern Time. HUNT said that he would set up the call. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 77 MNWR 0052593 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 124. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 78 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151208 Special OMD AB meeting.rap3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Gary HUNT, Ryan PAYNE, Dennis DICKENSON, Jon RITZHEIMER and Timothy FOLEY. This recording is approximately 1 hour, 27 minutes and 1 second long. At the beginning of this recording Ryan PAYNE identified the meeting as the Operation Mutual Defense Advisory Board Special Meeting on Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 2:00 Pacific Time. PAYNE said that the purpose for calling this meeting was due to the arrest of Schuyler BARBEAU in Washington State by federal agents. The conversation was centered on the arrest of Schuyler BARBEAU and OMA’s commitment to securing the release of individuals, like BARBEAU, who assisted in OMA action at the BUNDY Ranch. The HAMMOND situation, the establishment of the Harney Committees of Safety, and OMD administrative matters were also discussed during this meeting. At the end of the meeting, Timothy FOLEY discussed potentially stepping down as an OMD Advisory Board member. Below is a more complete review of this recording. 125. At 0:01:09, PAYNE discussed an agreement made by both Operation Mutual Aid and the participants of the leadership council at the BUNDY Ranch, to secure the release of individuals who participated in an OMA operation if they were apprehended or incarcerated while coming or going from an OMA operation. PAYNE said that at the meeting that was expanded to include a vigilant watch over each other after the events. PAYNE regarded BARBEAU’s arrest as the first arrest of an OMA participant. PAYNE put forth a motion that a similar agreement be made in support of that same idea for OMD. HUNT said, "Ryan and I Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 78 MNWR 0052594 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 79 of 91 talked about this extensively before we started OMD and that that was the commitment made to the people that have been willing to stand up defying the Federal Government. They have stuck their neck out. And even though they came under a call from OMA, they...we’re a child of that original organization.., if we are as lax as the Veterans Administration is at protecting the Vietnam, Iraq ad Afghanistan veterans we’re scumbags. We have an obligation to them. Once they stand up they put themselves at risk and...we can’t ignore that." The Advisory Board members agreed so far as the participant’s action is not immoral or a violation of the Constitution. PAYNE said that he would like to discuss a possible course of action. 126. At 0:06:58, HUNT provided a brief to the OMD Advisory Board on the BARBEAU situation. HUNT described the arrest of BARBEAU at a truck stop and a simultaneous search warrant executed at a residence where BARBEAU was staying. HUNT described the federal agents’ actions during the execution of the search warrant "abusive" and "excessive." At 0:13:24, PAYNE said that members of the community agreed that BARBEAU’s arrest appeared to be a direct aggressive action towards their community. PAYNE said that BARBEAU was regarded as a trusted individual who was brought in as part of the BUNDY family’s security detail. PAYNE said that "they" [the government] know the stature of BARBEAU within the community and it is an aggressive action towards that and towards the whole movement. At 0:15:50, HUNT discussed Blaine COOPER’s references in the BARBEAU situation and warned the other members about COOPER. PAYNE shared that he contacted COOPER and asked him to put out a "message of awareness" regarding BARBEAU. HUNT directed the members of the OMD Board to the criminal complaint, "Document 1" in their shared documents. 127. At 0:18:06, PAYNE discussed the PPN [Pacific Patriot Network]. PAYNE Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 79 MNWR 0052595 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 80 of 91 shared that the PPN was warning members of their community that PAYNE’s response to BARBEAU would be aggressive. PAYNE said that they [PPN] were trying to withhold information from him and OMD and are spreading information that PAYNE and OMD wants a war with the Federal Government. PAYNE also said that members of the PPN are disgusted with their organization’s lack of desire to action and are becoming disenfranchised with PPN and they have made contact with PAYNE and given him his support in Harney County and with any action that is planned for BARBEAU. 128. From 0:21:55 to 0:48:18, the OMD Advisory Board discussed their own procedure for responding to emergency situations as well as individual board member’s actions and how they affect OMD’s reputation. 129. At 0:48:25, the Advisory Board continued to discuss Schuyler BARBEAU. At 0:50:20, PAYNE outlined a plan for the 14.th. of December at his court appearance wherein he planned to relay a message to BARBEAU that there are people there to support him. PAYNE discussed a two-pronged approach to secure BARBEAU’s release, including a protest effort and the actual effort to secure his release. PAYNE said that he was going to leave the details of this plan in the dark for the moment. At 0:53:04, PAYNE said, "A call is going to be going out at some point ah, here shortly.., probably within the next couple of weeks to... assemble in this area, where I’m at. And that...is going to bring forth a lot of the resources that would be necessary in order to... request Schuyler’s release. And ah, at that point the.., more intricate plans for the.., other side.., can come together. And, ah, so that.., seems to be ah, the best avenue we’ve come up with so far, which is basically to stay hands off. Let Schuyler know that we’re here and we haven’t forgotten about him by showing up and seeing him and letting him see us. And then ah, basically using the muster, um, that is probably going to be coming about for this effort.., in Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 8O MNWR 0052596 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 81 of 91 order to draw the man power and support from...to secure him." PAYNE said that there are other folks, outside the PPN, that are knowledgeable with this plan and are gathering schematics for developing this plan. HUNT suggested that the plan for BARBEAU needs to be completely secret. 130. At 0:57:44, PAYNE said, "Up here, as far as the Harney County effort, our public meeting on this Saturday... I’m going to give the presentation on Committees of Safety, and one of the.., obj ectives of that public meeting is to... get the seats to that Committees of Safety established. Now that Committees of Safety will then...have the authority, first off to call forth the ah, evidentiary review board, and also to call forth for the.., sanctuary to be provided for the HAMMONDS while that evidentiary review board is taking place and all of this initiated by the local, ah populace, by the people. So once that... Committees of Safety comes together and.., decides what call to issue... I believe that would satisfy the criteria that we’ve set forth in order to support this effort up here. Is there a disagreement with that?" HUNT said, "No there’s not. What I’m suggesting...prepare a motion for them to work with. Have that in hand. Once the council is formed give them the motion that you think is there. Let them work it up to their satisfaction and then we’ve got this piece of paper rather than getting what you intend in the motion out of before, ah, well before the meeting where the government could have people in there arguing against it rather than having them having to spontaneously argue." PAYNE continued, "Basically the idea of the meeting is to present them with all of the information and then...induce the idea of forming that...body at that meeting. Because of the gathering of the people." HUNT responded, "But then you need to have in hand what you want to... propose what their motion be, their first order of business." PAYNE agreed and said, "That will obviously conjure forth the necessary resources in order to ah...to put together a more cohesive Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 81 MNWR 0052597 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 82 of 91 plan.., as far as our friend up there in Washington." HUNT said, "Same thing there.., at assembly, that only the assembly be announced and then the...tactics be given at the last minute...immediately before implementation. Give them as little time." At 1:01:10, PAYNE said, "In order to... go any further with any of the plans or intents are up here... I can’t do that over this line of communication, so... but as I said, we basically do have what looks like enough support within the local populace that.., moving forward.., it appears as if it’s feasible, anyway." HUNT said to PAYNE, "Well I think up there in your circumstance you need to find some people that you trust absolutely. Make a little group and close the door once it’s formed, you know, like a security team. You’re aware of that concept, I know. Create a security team up there to do all the planning and we don’t even need to know what it is. I mean, you can tell us the same time you.., hand it out to the people there. There’s no, even though we have a structure that allows for certain planning in this instance.., maybe we need to look in the future at ah, a method of ah, secured communication." HUNT went on to explain a technique called duel encryption. 131. At 1:04:01, the OMD Advisory Board discussed making a public statement regarding BARBEAU. At 1:06:56, RITZHEIMER said, "Just to be clear as well, I’m free and at liberty to do my own...rallying up of the troops, so to say. Not...this is not an official call to arms yet, or anything like that, but basically I’m allowed to put it out there, get your gear ready?" The members of the OMD Advisory Board discussed how they will discuss the BARBEAU situation and the potential for OMD to uphold an obligation to those that are willing to face off with the government. At 1:11:05, HUNT explained that he would try and get his story explaining the BARBEAU situation written as soon as possible so it could possibly go out at the same time as the OMD press release. HUNT said that he would post the story on the Outpost of Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 82 MNWR 0052598 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 83 of 91 Freedom. At 1:11:49, PAYNE warned RITZHEIMER, "Just so you’re aware...we are going to be...the effort up here is looking like the possibility of being an "extended effort." Just so you can take that into account for your preparations." RITZHEIMER questioned PAYNE what he meant by "extended effort." PAYNE and HUNT agreed that enough had been said about PAYNE’s effort in Oregon. HUNT and PAYNE then spoke about getting a secure means of communication as soon as possible. PAYNE suggested that RITZHEIMER fly to meet with PAYNE and RITZHEIMER said that he would be driving. RITZHEIMER said that he has a meeting on the 14.th. and then he’s making the drive up there [Burns, Oregon]. PAYNE suggested that with a face-to-face communication he could make it more clear to what was going on. HUNT suggested PAYNE and RITZHEIMER meet at his residence because he is in between the two. HUNT asked RITZHEIMER his intention for traveling to Oregon, whether it was for the long term, or if he was just going up for background and planning. At 1:14:17, RITZHEIMER said that, "If I’m making a drive like that it’s going to be... like I said, I’ve got my meeting on the 14.thand then I’m making my drive up there for...the duration. Do what I gotta do." 132. At 1:16:45, PAYNE shared that the encrypted communication that he was discussing earlier was "digital burst" and is not a vocal communication. PAYNE said that it’s as easy as downloading it. PAYNE said that he would contact DICKENSON directly and talk about this later at 8:30. 133. At 1:18:40, FOLEY said that he’s debating stepping aside from OMD. FOLEY said that he’s heard that others have been warned by the FBI to stay away from him and he planned to meet with the FBI, DEA and Border Patrol to get things straightened out. At 1:20:30, FOLEY said, "If they ask me any questions and I don’t know anything...then I can’t tell them Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order MNWR 0052599 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 84 of 91 anything. Regardless, I doubt I would tell them anything anyway. But the less I know about what’s getting, could happen, because I’m pretty sure they know that I’m tied in with you guys, because they listen and look at us more than they do Muslims, or anybody else.., and that’s why I’m bringing it up. I’m debating whether to step aside for awhile until I can get to the bottom of this mess and try and figure out, because, like I say, I ain’t got nothing to hide. I’m not doing anything wrong but they are who they are and eventually if I don’t go to them, they’re going to come to me and if they come to me again, it could turn out to be another.., situation." PAYNE shared that it is his assumption that these conversations. At 1:23:17, HUNT warned FOLEY of Melvin LEE. During this discussion PAYNE reminded HUNT to turn off the recording, which he did. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 84 MNWR 0052600 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 134. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 85 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151213-OI~ID-AB meeting.rap3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Gary HUNT, Ryan PAYNE, Dennis DICKENSON and Jon RITZHEIMER. This recording is approximately 42 minutes and 17 seconds long. At the beginning of this recording Ryan PAYNE identified the meeting as the Operation Mutual Defense Advisory Board Meeting on Sunday, December 13. The conversation was centered on Schuyler BARBEAU’s court appearance. The Harney County community meeting and Committees of Safety were also briefly discussed during this meeting. Below is a more complete review of this recording. 135. At 0:2:30, HUNT asked PAYNE, "What about the Committees of Safety, did you talk to the.., local people about that?" PAYNE replied, "At the public meeting I will be giving a PowerPoint presentation on it." PAYNE said that the public meeting was scheduled for Tuesday at 6 p.m. HUNT replied, "I’ve got no more questions. Looking forward to the reaction though, on that." PAYNE responded, "Yeah. Absolutely." 136. At 0:04:10, PAYNE cryptically said, "Our eyes are basically closed if you get what I’m saying.., so we have pretty good clarity this morning, but if they’re smart they’ll know exactly when to slip us. Although they won’t be able to at that point either, so." 137. From 0:04:37 to 0:35:00, the OMD Advisory Board discussed the Schuylar BARBEAU situation in Washington. PAYNE said that he would attend BARBEAU’s hearing in Washington. HUNT told PAYNE that BARBEAU may have tried to defend MURPHY and nothing should happen to him (MURPHY). PAYNE and HUNT discussed the potential that Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 85 MNWR 0052601 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 86 of 91 BARBEAU may wish to pursue his court case and the OMD Advisory Board agreed to wait until they learned BARBEAU’s intentions before they attempted to free him from Federal custody. PAYNE said that BARBEAU will likely use the Mike SCHOOL’s arguments for his defense. 138. The OMD Advisory Board planned for OMD meetings on the following day (after PAYNE attends BARBEAU’ s court hearing), after PAYNE hosts the public meeting in Burns, Oregon on the upcoming Tuesday, and after HUNT learns more about BARBEAU’s intentions. The OMD Advisory Board also discussed pushing their next regular Sunday OMD Advisory Board meeting to 1:00 p.m. PST. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 86 MNWR 0052602 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 139. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 87 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151220-Ol~ID-AB meeting.rap3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Gary HUNT and Ryan PAYNE. This recording is approximately 22 minutes and 8 seconds long. At the beginning of this recording Ryan PAYNE identified the meeting as the OMD Advisory Board Meeting on December 20, 2015. The conversation was centered the establishment of the Harney County Committee of Safety and using them to issue a call for OMD or militia action in Harney County. Schuyler BARBEAU and Timothy FOLEY’s resignation from the OMD Advisory Board were also briefly discussed during this meeting. Below is a more complete review of this recording. 140. At the beginning of the conversation PAYNE discussed how individual patriots were moving towards action in the Harney County situation without the support of their associated organizations. 141. The OMD Advisory Board briefly discussed the Schuyler BARBEAU situation in Washington. 142. At 0:03:44, the OMD Advisory Board discussed FOLEY’s departure as an OMD Advisory Board member and accepted his resignation. RITZHEIMER and HUNT discussed the potential that FOLEY stepped down from the Advisory Board because HUNT spoke negatively about Melvin LEE. The Advisory Board then spent time discussing LEE and his relationship with KC MASSEY. The Advisory Board discussed finding someone to replace FOLEY as the OMD’s Training and Communications positions. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 87 MNWR 0052603 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 143. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 88 of 91 At 0:10:45, HUNT asked PAYNE about the Committee of Safety in Harney County. PAYNE provided an update as to the structure of the Harney County Committee of Safety. At 0:12:41, PAYNE said, "It’s moving along pretty well. They have ah, accepted myself and Ammon as advisors to it. Um, and they have some pretty good ah, some pretty good contact made now for ah, local militia officers to recommend when they decide it’s time to call forth the militia and, and ah..." HUNT asked, "Are they freedom loving Americans?" PAYNE responded, "Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Their ideas were put forth. Well, I’ll put it this way. Our ideas were put forth by them without them being told what our ideas were. So that just shows the unity that exists outside any influence." HUNT then said, "Well, I’m fully satisfied that the way you’re going up there now is the proper way that we will have the invite that I feel is so necessary and I’m glad you were able to get the Committee of Safety going." Later, HUNT said that he hoped that A. BUNDY would now take the concept of the Committee of Safety down to the people of Bunkerville, Nevada. 144. From 0:16:29 to 0:19:08, the OMD Advisory Board briefly discussed BARBEAU and Oliver MURPHY. 145. At 0:19:10, PAYNE asked HUNT if he had any additional questions about what’s happening in Harney County and HUNT said, "No, just waiting for, you know, when they put out the invitation then, I think OMD is, is fully justified in going to the aid of the, the residents of Harney County." PAYNE said, "The idea that’s been pursued, um, and planted in there, for them, is that they, when they call up, ah, the militia, if they do, then they, they do it from within their county using a, the appointed militia officers and we have an outline to help them with establishing that and getting it going. Um, and that, that was acceptable to the other folks we talked to so..in that regard then the people, ah, who come in, if they request outside support, ah, Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 88 MNWR 0052604 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 89 of 91 would already have a command structure to fall under." HUNT said to PAYNE, "Well, just keep us informed, or me informed. I’m kind of looking forward to us being able to go to Harney County now, you know, with a clear conscience." Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 89 MNWR 0052605 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR 146. Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 90 of 91 Special Agent Matthew Catalano reviewed the file titled "151227-Ol~ID-AB meeting.rap3" located in the "OMD" folder of Dropbox user account ID 328858080, which was seized from Dropbox, Inc. pursuant to search warrant 2:16-mj-000224-NJK in the District of Nevada. This file is an audio recording of a conference call-style conversation between selfproclaimed Operation Mutual Defense ("OMD") Advisory Board members Ryan PAYNE, Dennis DICKENSON, Jon RITZHEIMER, and Gary HUNT. This recording is approximately 23 minutes and 50 seconds long. At the beginning of this recording Ryan PAYNE identified the meeting as the Operation Mutual Defense Advisory Board Meeting on December 27, 2015. The conversation was centered on the HAMMOND situation, the Harney County Committee of Safety and Schuyler BARBEAU. Below is a more complete review of this recording. 147. From 0:01:03 to 0:05:40, the OMD Advisory Board discussed the BARBEAU situation in Washington. HUNT said that he had a new article out about BARBEAU on his blog. 148. At 0:05:40 PAYNE said that he is trying to push for the Harney County Committee of Safety to put out a public meeting soon. PAYNE said that there was a peaceful rally scheduled on January 2, 2016 in support of the HAMMONDS. 149. At 0:08:28 PAYNE said that the Harney County Committee of Safety has had two meetings since they formed. HUNT asked if has attended these meetings and PAYNE said that he had not. HUNT asked PAYNE if he had any idea what their current thoughts were and PAYNE said, "Well, they’re, they’re kind of split. Urn, one gentleman left the board because he’s a former law enforcement and he didn’t necessarily want the affiliation. Ah, and then ah, the others are kind of split between kind of the negativity that’s going on, ah, around town. And, ah, there’s a very small group of people who are participating in a, a disinformation campaign and a ’militia go home,’ ah, is posted up around town-things like that, so. Some of those folks Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 9O MNWR 0052606 Case 3:16-cr-00051-BR Document 2519-1 Filed 02/21/18 Page 91 of 91 are, are entertaining that side of things and ah, the other ones are still fully in support of, ah, the original idea, so. Just kinda guiding them through the understanding that they’re not supposed to be a, an existing government lobbying entity, they’re supposed ah, the true representation of the people, direct representatives. And guiding them along that path is how it’s going at the moment." HUNT responded, "Well something comes up and they do put out the invitation make sure you call a special meeting so we can get the word out. You know, I’m still optimistic that maybe they’re [unintelligible] cleared to see that they don’t want the federal thugs in there, they’d rather have the militia." PAYNE guessed that the Harney County Committee of Safety is a couple of weeks off of making a decision. At 0:14:39, HUNT said, "I’d be interesting at the Committee of Safety, ah, got everybody that was a member in the room and said, ’those that stand with the Federal Government stand against that wall, those that are with Harney County stand against this wall,’ and then remove all the people that are Torries. Because it sounds, I mean, you know it makes sense, I mean, you don’t want the enemy on your side, in your organization. That’s what they did 200 years ago. Ah, but the ones that stand with the Feds, you know, unfortunately they’re a vote. Unless they get rid of the Torries the crown wins, so to speak." RITZHEIMER said, "We also in that we separate the people that are on the fence. If anybody’s willing to admit that they’re on the fence about.., the situation. Instead of kicking everybody out." RITZHEIMER said, "Ryan said it good today, earlier, he said, ’We’re convincing the dog to bite the hand that feeds it.’ But Ryan also made it clear, because we see the poison. The dog’s being fed the poison." 150. The OMD Advisory Board went back and forth discussing the HAMMOND and BARBEAU situations. PAYNE said that the BARBEAU situation might affect the folks that show up in Harney County, in either increasing numbers or decreasing numbers. Exhibit A Dissemination Limited by Court Order 91 MNWR 0052607