Ammon Bundy tells Oregon holdouts to 'stand down' and 'go home'

The jailed leader of the group occupying the Malheuer National Wildlife Refuge, Ammon Bundy, had his attorney deliver a message to the armed occupiers still at the Oregon refuge.

"I'm asking the federal government to allow the people at the refuge to go home without being prosecuted," Bundy said in a statement, read by attorney Mike Arnold on Wednesday afternoon. "To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now in the courts. Please go home."

Bundy and other militants were arrested on a highway about 15 miles north of Burns on Tuesday evening, with one occupier, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, shot and killed during the traffic stop. The occupiers took over the refuge on Jan. 2, and Bundy and the others arrested Tuesday are charged with impeding federal wildlife officers from doing their jobs. Earlier Wednesday, some of the militia members still at the refuge used YouTube to try to recruit supporters, with one saying on a livestream: "You can fight for your country right here in America. Get here, get some! This is history in the making. There are no laws in this United States now." He then recommended that if federal officials tried to stop a person from entering the refuge, supporters should "kill them."

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