Oregon standoff leader Ammon Bundy once took out a federal loan

(Image credit: ROB KERR/AFP/Getty Images)

published 5 January 2016

Ammon Bundy once sought aid from the very federal government he is now decrying as tyrannical in the armed occupation of a national wildlife preserve in Oregon. Back in 2010 — roughly five years before Bundy headed up protests against the prosecution of two local ranchers and the federal government's land use at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge — Bundy received a federal small-business loan, Mother Jones reports:

Ammon Bundy runs a Phoenix-based company called Valet Fleet Services LLC, which specializes in repairing and maintaining fleets of semitrucks throughout Arizona. On April 15, 2010 — Tax Day, as it happens — Bundy's business borrowed $530,000 through a Small Business Administration loan guarantee program. The available public record does not indicate what the loan was used for or whether it was repaid. The SBA website notes that this loan guarantee was issued under a program "to aid small businesses which are unable to obtain financing in the private credit marketplace." The government estimated that this subsidy could cost taxpayers $22,419. Bundy did not respond to an email request for comment about the SBA loan. [Mother Jones]