‘Freemen’ Leader Taken to Meet With Jailed Comrade

The FBI flew a “freemen” leader to Billings on Tuesday to confer with a jailed comrade about a possible surrender by the 17 people remaining at the ranch surrounded by federal agents.

The FBI said it arranged safe passage for Edwin Clark from the ranch near Jordan to Billings, where LeRoy Schweitzer is jailed. The arrest of Schweitzer and another freemen leader more than two months ago sparked the 79-day standoff.

Clark was carrying a proposal, which might end the standoff, for Schweitzer to review and discuss, according to a senior federal official in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Another source familiar with the FBI strategy said the meeting was to allow Schweitzer to review plans for the surrender of those within the compound. Clark needed to check with Schweitzer before agreeing to surrender, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The source said the visit with Schweitzer is part of a larger proposal between the FBI and freemen that could bring the standoff to a peaceful conclusion by week’s end.

“They’ve pretty much agreed it won’t be a gun battle,” the source said. “I’m extremely hopeful at this point.”

The senior official in Washington, however, cautioned that the agreement still could fall through.

Also on the FBI plane that carried Clark to Billings were three negotiators from the CAUSE Foundation, third-party mediators brought in by the FBI. The group has represented a former Ku Klux Klan leader as well as survivors of the deadly 1993 Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas.

The FBI said that after the talks in Billings it was going “to return Clark to the freemen-occupied ranch.”

Clark is one of the original owners of the now-foreclosed land the freemen occupy.

He is wanted on charges of impersonating public officials by helping to issue bogus arrest warrants and subpoenas on behalf of freemen-invented courts, and criminal syndicalism for knowingly belonging to an organization that advocates crime, violence or terrorism to further political goals.