[41] The leader of the occupation was Ammon Bundy—a native of Bunkerville, Nevada, owner of a car fleet management company in Phoenix, Arizona,[42] and a recent resident of Emmett, Idaho.

Both Bundys are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and claimed that their armed opposition to the federal government was ordained for them via divine messages ordering them to do so.

On December 1, 2019, an investigation commissioned by the Washington House of Representatives reported then-Washington state legislator, theocrat, and white supremacist Matt Shea,[51] had planned and participated in domestic terrorism on at least three occasions.

[53] The state House district's Republican Representative, Cliff Bentz, attended the meeting, despite being warned by Harney County Judge Steven Grasty to decline the invitation.

[68] By late fall, local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies noticed that members of anti-government militias had started to relocate to Harney County, and the USFWS began circulating a photograph of Ammon Bundy with instructions for staff to "be on the lookout".

[70] From mid-November to late December 2015, local residents began to notice significant numbers of outsiders in the community, often dressed in military-style attire and openly carrying handguns and sometimes rifles.

Many local people considered these actions to be deliberate intimidation, intended to sway the community into joining the outsider's unspecified plan to "protect" the Hammonds from re-arrest.

[74] Following speeches, the crowd marched to the home of Dwight and Steven Hammond, stopping briefly en route to protest outside the sheriff's office and the county courthouse.

[10] Right before the occupation began, the militants notified the Harney County Sheriff's Office and also contacted a utility company with the intention of taking over the refuge's electric and other services, according to a motion to dismiss and memorandum filed by Ammon Bundy's lawyers on May 9.

[87] A fistfight erupted at the refuge on the evening of January 6 when three members of a group calling themselves Veterans on Patrol attempted to enter the headquarters and convince women, children and Ryan Payne to leave.

[95] The 3 Percenters of Idaho announced it was sending some of its members to "secure a perimeter" around the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge compound and prevent a repeat of the Waco siege.

[106][107] On January 12, the militants told KOIN reporter Chris Holmstrom that the refuge facilities were messy and unorganized when they arrived, and Jason Patrick asserted that they encountered rat feces two inches (51 mm) deep.

[108] Bruce Doucette, the owner of a computer repair shop in Denver, Colorado, and a self-proclaimed judge, announced on January 12 that he would convene a "citizens grand jury" to charge government officials with various crimes.

[114][115] Also on January 15, the Oath Keepers anti-government militia group warned of a prospective "conflagration so great, it cannot be stopped, leading to a bloody, brutal civil war" if the situation descended into violence.

An Oregon State Police SWAT member, identified in the trial of FBI agent Astarita as "Officer 1", fired three shots with an AR-15, into Finicum's truck as it approached the roadblock.

[163] Through his lawyer, Michael Arnold of Eugene, Oregon, Ammon Bundy on January 27 urged those remaining at the refuge to stand down and go home,[164] statements that were echoed by his wife.

[167][168] By the morning of January 28, four militants remained: David Fry, 27, of Blanchester, Ohio; husband and wife Sean, 48, and Sandra Lynn Anderson, 47, both of Riggins, Idaho; and Jeff Banta, 46, of Yerington, Nevada.

Federal authorities claimed that caused them to begin to surround the refuge at around 5:45 p.m.[182][183][184] Michael Arnold, Ammon Bundy's lawyer, learned of the escalation from a live feed where the remaining holdouts were talking of murder and asking to speak to Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore.

Fiore met with Reverend Franklin Graham at the Burns Municipal Airport, who had flown in there on his private airplane, and both were driven to the refuge in an FBI armored truck, with Arnold in a vehicle behind them.

[194] Michael Ray Emry, who had described himself as being an "embedded reporter" for the 3 Percenters of Idaho,[195][196] was arrested by the FBI on May 6 in John Day, Oregon, on federal weapons charges relating to his possession of a stolen fully automatic .50-caliber M2 Browning heavy machine gun.

A California blogger, Gary Hunt, said he received a thumb drive and documents that contained the names of the nine informants who had been at the Refuge, and six others in the case who had not been there, and he subsequently posted them online to aid the defense.

[226] Noting that the defendant's guilty plea and low level of involvement in the occupation had mitigated the consequences of his actions, Judge Brown sentenced Geoffrey Stanek on June 26, 2017, to two years' probation and six months' house arrest.

[238] Following the surrender of the last militants, the FBI labeled the entire refuge a crime scene and canvassed the buildings in search of explosives and any previously existing hazardous materials.

[241] Investigators found "significant amounts of human feces" at "two large trenches and an improvised road on or adjacent to grounds containing sensitive artifacts" of the Burns Paiute Tribe.

[120] The Burns Paiute Tribe condemned the damage;[245] tribal council member Jarvis Kennedy described it as if "someone went to Arlington National Cemetery and went to the bathroom on the graves and rode a bulldozer over them".

[246] Two of the militants, Sean Larry Anderson and Jake Edward Ryan, were subsequently indicted for "depredation of government property", an offense that carries a potential ten-year jail sentence.

[248] The refuge remained closed after the FBI left the site in late February, with the entrance road blocked off from public access by armed officers from the USFWS.

[130][255] According to an initial analysis by The Oregonian, the occupation "cost taxpayers at least $3.3 million to cover the massive police response, a week of shuttered schools and a long list of supplies ranging from food to flashlight batteries".

[264][265][266][267] In the first days, the takeover sparked a debate in the United States on the meaning of the word "terrorist" and on how the news media and law enforcement treat situations involving people of different ethnicities or religions.

Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, called the suit a "bizarre, incoherent, yet nonetheless dangerous, attack on free speech",[276] Disposition of the case and parties was reviewed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan, who on July 24, 2020, made recommendations to the district court regarding each of the defendants.