in fact he soon had a new case to deal with because wayne, sr. in his final years had gradually built up a new herd of cattle but still didn t have a grazing permit. this time however when the government threatened to impound more of the hage s life stock, there was a new sheriff in time literally. i was informed by my deputies they were going to do a cattle seizure. he s been sheriff since 2003. they didn t have a court order and they were doing it on a signature of a bureaucrat. and i told them, i said, if you get your s.w.a.t. team we ll be face og are s.w.a.t. on the property of mr. hage to prevent you from doing any unlawful seizure. why did he want to put himself between the federal government and the hage family? b the feds gave up on the idea of seizing more cattle. but in 2007 they filed a civil trespass suit against wayne, jr.
and his father s estate. with that case pending, along with the one his father filed against the government years before, the legal bills were piling up. wayne jr. couldn t afford to pay the lawyers and keep the ranch afloat. you decided to go to law school to support yourself. i figured it was cheaper for me to learn the law. i had to quit ranching, lock myself in the office and devote myself to full-time litigation. 13 trial week, 100-plus depositions, 50 cases of file boxes, 47,000 pages of documents and 1,307 trial exhibits. do you feel like your life has become a courtroom drama? certain times it does feel like it, yes. the court of federal claims established to hear monetary claims against the u.s.
7,000 acres. it also included exclusive access to more than 7,000 acres of adjoining land, so called open range. wayne took a couple of days to show us around. the you really need that much property in. yes, in this country it takes 320 acre to raise one cow for one year. they couldn t afford to purchase the acres, so they paid for their smaller piece of property and at the same time bought the right to water and grazing on the larger spread. that s the way it s been done out here since the 1860s. this these rights have been passed down for more than 100 years and the reason that pine creek is economically valuable. the extra land is public property managed by the forest service and that s where they say their problems began. it s not like they weren t warned.
we had hoped to talk to the u.s. forest service about all of this to get its side of the story, but they wouldn t talk to fox news. the bureau of land sent a statement saying, quote, they will not engage in conversations that could affect the outcome. they will respond to questions once litigation concludes. the u.s. department of justice also declined our interview requests. they re meeting today to hear testimony on threats, intimidation and bullying by land management agencies. in late october 2013, wayne hage and a group of fellow ranchers testified before congress. i m going to get retribution for being here and talking to you about stories that will make the hair stand on the back of your neck.
but when we come back we ll rejoin wayne hage whose family has been battling the government through six separate administrations. how did his story end, or has it? test test. bundle them together at progrsive, and you save big on both. oh, oh-oh, oh, oh