Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday pointed out the Trump administration was able to undo an egregious instance of government weaponization against the Maude family of ranchers in South Dakota during a policy event hosted by Breitbart News.
Rollins lamented how the “government has weaponized itself against families like the Maudes,” noting that they are fifth generation farmers and ranchers.
During the Biden administration, the United States Forest Service alerted the Maude family that their property allegedly blocked access to the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and in good faith agreed to a survey of the property lines. However, after the survey was completed, the Biden administration transformed a simple civil dispute into a “costly, invasive, and unnecessary criminal prosecution.”
Rollins noted that the “fence that was put up in 1910 by Charles’s great-great grandad that no one ever thought there was a problem.”
She added, “Fast forward one hundred and ten years, and someone from the Forest Service shows up, says your fence might not be in the right place.”
“That’s they hear of it until agents in SWAT gear show up at their front door and say that they are being criminally charged for theft of government property that they need to find guardians for their young children because they are likely going to jail,” the Agriculture Secretary continued.
Rollins charged, “The fact that this happened in America should absolutely stun everyone in this room today, everyone on the livestream, every media representative that’s here.”
She asked rhetorically, “This is America. You’re going to put people in jail over a fence line?”
Contrasting it with the Democrats, she said, “We have members of the other party going to El Salvador going to get a gang member out prison, that’s who they are fighting for.”
Rollins remarked, “So, thankful to the White House, thankful to President Trump. We got all of the criminal charges dropped. We had the Maudes in town a week ago.”
Rollins noted that they had set up a hotline to blow the whistle about other instances of government weaponization to stop more outrages like this.
Follow Breitbart News for more coverage of this policy event.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
