And so round one of an 11-month federal undercover operation against the Freemen movement went to the Feds-much to the chagrin of Schweitzer’s supporters on the ultraright. Like many in the militia movement, Schweitzer is known for his radical opposition to government and the law. Unlike many, he is also known to authorities as the progenitor of an elaborate scheme to bilk banks and businesses of what may be millions of dollars, using phony money orders and certified checks. Along with other Freemen, Schweitzer is said to have run a school for aspiring con men on the property outside Jordan, which he and his followers call “Justus Township.”
Nobody knows for sure how many Freemen are on the four ranches–estimates range from 15 to 25, including wives and children. The properties are loosely cordoned off by an FBI task force, and the Freemen are heavily armed and prepared for a long siege–ready, as Petersen warned in federal court last week, for an outcome “worse than Waco.” The prospect of a shoot-out between the Feds and the militias has attracted a horde of reporters to Jordan. The full FBI detachment included its Hostage Rescue Team, veterans of the Waco debacle and the equally notorious siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992. A lawyer for Randy Weaver, whose wife was killed by an FBI sniper at Ruby Ridge, offered Weaver as a mediator in the standoff. Federal sources said the government had no plans to take the offer. The FBI seems determined to avoid the kind of confrontation that turned the Weavers into right-wing martyrs, and sources said the Hostage Rescue Team had been pulled back. The field team, controlled from Washington, “won’t be playing any tapes of rabbits being slaughtered,” a Justice Department official said.
Schweitzer, Petersen and eight associates were charged with fraud in a sealed federal indictment in May 1995. (One of the eight, Richard Clark, 47, surrendered peacefully last Saturday.) In September, Schweitzer and some of his followers loaded supplies and an arsenal of weapons into a caravan of cars and trucks and moved from nearby Roundup, Mont., to Jordan, where they joined forces with other members of the Freemen movement. The move worried local authorities, who were well aware that the Freemen had a history of harassing them with lawsuits, property liens and threats. “It’s been a real tense situation since the other Freemen moved here,” says Garfield County prosecutor Nick Mumion. Now the Feds are there in force–but the fear in Jordan is that other radicals may reinforce Justus and turn the standoff violent.
