[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

Since so much of their extremist worldview hinges on the idea that the county sheriff is the highest authority in the land, the “constitutionalists” who seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., last week have been extremely vocal about their displeasure with Sheriff David Ward of Harney County.

Ward, they say, has failed in his “constitutional duty” to defend ranchers in his county against the federal government. It’s widely believed the sheriff is one of the chief targets of the “citizens grand jury” the Ammon Bundy-led invaders plan to convene soon.

So the militiamen recently turned to a sheriff they believed to be more sympathetic to their cause: Glenn Palmer, the sheriff of Grant County, which is adjacent to Harney County directly to the north.

According to Palmer, the men showed up in the town of John Day and arranged a meeting at a local restaurant. In the end, they failed to get what they came for –– Palmer’s assistance.

“I had no idea who I was meeting with when we had lunch yesterday,” he said. “I walked in, I realized who they were and I sat and listened to them. ... They actually wanted me to come down there and make a stand, and I said, ‘not without the sheriff’s blessing.’”

The men had reason to believe that Palmer would be sympathetic to their cause. Palmer calls himself a “constitutional sheriff” and is not only a member in good standing of the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), but was named that organization’s “lawman of the year” in 2012. He also traveled to Washington, D.C., in 2014 to participate in a CSPOA-led meeting with two U.S. senators about immigration.

Palmer’s claim to fame among their ranks lies in his feud with the U.S. Forest Service over policing powers in Grant County. Palmer told USFS officials that their rangers only had jurisdiction in the federal building in John Day.

And while the sheriff was unwilling to go to Harney County to help bolster the Bundys’ cause, Palmer told the East Oregonian that while he has “a pretty good working relationship” with the neighboring sheriff, he was also unwilling to go to Burns to support Sheriff Ward.

“About the only thing (Ward) really told me is I’m welcome to come down there if I would shame and humiliate them into giving up and I said, ‘No, I won’t do that,”’ Palmer said. “I’m not in the business of denouncing or shaming or humiliating anybody.”

Palmer described the participants in the takeover as “patriots,” and generally spoke of the occupation in glowing terms: “I think it’s brought some things to light that might not have otherwise got the attention that they did. … I do believe that the resolution and solution to the way this is going to be handled, if it’s handled properly, could have a long-lasting effect on our county as well.”

He was also clear in his view that such an outcome would require the government to make concessions.

“I believe the government is going to have to concede to something,” he said. “I don’t think these guys are going to give up without knowing that they’ve done something that benefits the people of our country or our region.”

CSPOA president Richard Mack, who participated in the rally in Burns supporting two local ranchers whose imminent imprisonment served as the Bundys’ excuse for the takeover later that day, initially backed away from the protest, saying the “CSPOA does not support or condone the occupation.”

But in a video released earlier this week, Mack told right-wing interviewer Joshua Cook that while he disagreed with the takeover tactically, he fully supported the ideology behind it, explaining that it was a logical response to federal “tyranny.”