The Biden administration declared war on America's farmers and ranchers.
One fifth-generation ranch family just became the face of everything that went wrong.
Trump just handed American farmers a weapon they have never had before.
Agricultural Lawfare in Action: Biden DOJ Made Felons Out of a Family Farm Over a Fence Line
Charles and Heather Maude worked land their family has owned since 1910.
Their crime, according to Biden's Justice Department: a fence.
The fence had stood for 75 years on their South Dakota ranch bordering the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands.
Biden's Forest Service decided that fence blocked federal access – and instead of resolving it as a civil matter, Biden's DOJ criminally indicted Charles and Heather Maude separately on felony theft of government property charges.
Each faced up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
A judge barred the husband and wife from discussing the case with each other.
The court required them to hire separate defense attorneys.
Then came the bills.
"They were bankrupted, basically, because of their legal fees," Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told The Daily Wire.
Biden fficials ignored pleas from South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Sen. Mike Rounds to stand down.
Letters went unanswered – calls to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's office got nowhere.
The Maudes were headed toward a July 2025 trial date when Trump took office and Rollins went to work.
On April 28, 2025, Trump's DOJ dropped every charge.
"The Maudes are not criminals," Rollins said at a Washington press conference with the family standing beside her. "They have worked their land since the early 1900s."
Rollins called it exactly what it was: a politically motivated witch hunt.
Former Attorney General Pam Bondi added that DOJ resources belong on real criminals – not family farms.
USDA Lawfare Portal and Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework Now Shield Family Farms From Government Overreach
Rollins didn't stop with the Maudes.
Within weeks of Trump dropping those charges, Rollins launched the USDA Lawfare Portal – a direct line for farmers and ranchers being hit with the same government tactics that nearly destroyed the Maudes.
More than 600 submissions poured in from producers across 47 states.
On July 2, Rollins and SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding to turn that portal into a government-wide enforcement machine.
The agreement gives the USDA Lawfare Portal direct access to the SBA's complaint-resolution machinery, creating a unified front against any federal agency still targeting rural producers.
No farmer or rancher now stands alone against the EPA, the Forest Service, or any other Biden-era bureaucracy still trying to weaponize regulations against rural America.
"Producers and ranchers who feed this nation should never face the full power of government alone," Rollins said.
Ninety-eight percent of Americans used to be farmers.
That number has collapsed to 2%.
Radical environmentalist NGOs, activist groups, and compliant federal agencies spent decades driving that collapse – and Biden's team handed them the tools to accelerate it.
"The radical environmentalism agenda has done its share of damage to America's farmers," the USDA stated in its July 2 press release.
The MOU feeds directly into Trump's Executive Order on Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation – building a data record of regulatory abuse that drives the next phase of reform.
The portal catalogues it all – complaints, fines, prosecutions, every Biden-era case on record.
That catalogue becomes the evidence base for the next round of deregulation and, eventually, for holding accountable the agents who weaponized these tools in the first place.
The radical left spent decades using environmentalism as cover to push family farmers off generational land – not because they cared about a fence line or a grassland, but because controlling the food supply means controlling the people.
Western ranchers figured this out during the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and 1980s, when radical environmentalist groups first joined forces with federal agencies to strangle grazing rights and drive families off land they'd worked for generations.
It never got fully resolved – until now.
On the Fourth of July 2026, with 600 farm families watching and a formal government shield in place, Brooke Rollins just made clear which side Washington is on.
Sources:
- Mary Margaret Olohan, "EXCLUSIVE: Trump Administration Targets Lawfare Against Farmers, Ranchers," The Daily Wire, July 2, 2026.
- "USDA Announces Lawfare Partnership with SBA to Shield Producers, Ranchers, and Small Businesses from Weaponized Regulation," USDA Press Release, July 2, 2026.
- "Criminal charges against South Dakota ranchers dropped by Trump administration," Fox News, May 1, 2025.
- Katherine Mosack, "USDA and SBA Announce Partnership to Combat 'Radical Environmentalist' Lawfare Against U.S. Farmers, Ranchers," One America News, July 2, 2026.
- "Trump Administration Announces that the U.S. Government Has Dropped Criminal Charges Against Small Farmer/Rancher Maude Family," USDA Press Release, April 28, 2025.