Several government officials on Thursday stormed into a building on Amos Miller’s Lancaster County organic farm and conducted an illegal hours-long raid without notice, eventually leaving with multiple coolers containing the Amish farmer’s property.
The Lancaster Patriot reported the ‘search’ was performed by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture employees with three Pennsylvania State policemen aiding them.
As the outlet notes, a search warrant was issued Wednesday by Magisterial District Judge B. Denise Commins. It also included an affidavit of ‘probable cause’ by Sheri Morris, Acting Bureau Director of Food Safety with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
Morris claims in the affidavit that Miller failed to file applications from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture “for registration, licensing, or permitting under the pertinent Retail Food Facility Safety Act, Food Safety Act, or Milk Sanitation Laws.”
As Gateway Pundit readers will later learn in this piece, this reasoning is garbage and rewards illegal activity.
The Lancaster Patriot obtained footage of the officials executing the search at Miller’s organic farm. In the first video, a Patriot reporter is confronted by a cop and pushed outside once they learn he is a media member.
The second video shows the bureaucrats milling around with one man carrying a small cooler of the farmer’s belongings.
WATCH:
BREAKING: Footage of search warrant being executed on Amos Miller’s organic farm operations in Lancaster County, PA. (For more info on the ongoing saga, visit: https://t.co/uB5pbpnlhS) pic.twitter.com/U64ft05x0F
— The Lancaster Patriot (@TheLanPatriot) January 4, 2024
Footage of the search being conducted inside Amos Miller’s organic farm store in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. pic.twitter.com/iKUDbo9CcR
— The Lancaster Patriot (@TheLanPatriot) January 4, 2024
The taxpayer-funded bureaucrats then make off with a good chunk of Miller’s livelihood. At the 1:20 mark of the video below, they exit the building carrying several large coolers containing property from the farm.
The officials also ignore the reporter when he tries to confront them.
Exclusive footage of state agents leaving Amos Miller’s organic farm store, carrying off some of his products. pic.twitter.com/yVAHSmr1WH
— The Lancaster Patriot (@TheLanPatriot) January 4, 2024
A report of seized property provided to Miller revealed the officials seized 37 types of foods, including sour cream, chocolate milk, ice cream, and eggnog. They also took food from a walk-in cooler door, which contains hundreds of items and represents a significant portion of Miller’s products.
There is probably an ulterior motive involved in the raid. Miller detests Big Agriculture, which is one of the biggest government monopolies and has found a market for people who want sustainable and cleaner food products.
The products at his farm are sold to members of his farm’s private association rather than the general public. Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) suggests Miller was likely targeted because he dares to sell food without participating in the industrial meat complex.
Looks like Amos Miller’s farm is being raided.
With all of the problems in society today, this is what the government wants to focus on?
A man growing food for informed customers, without participating in the industrial meat/milk complex?
It’s shameful that it’s come to this. https://t.co/pWwjp6cgPh
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 4, 2024
In addition to items seized, they are forbidding Miller from selling the remaining products, effectively ending his business until further notice. All of this has left him in dire financial straits.
Please donate HERE to help Miller fight back against this government tyranny.
Miller’s attorney, Robert Barnes, released the following statement after the raid and concisely detailed how the jackbooted thugs broke several state rules to carry out the raid. He also noted Morris has a grudge against independent farmers like Miller.
Today, the Department of Agriculture of the State of Pennsylvania suddenly came, without notice, raided Amos’ farm, and detained everything Amos had in the farm’s freezer. They did so in a lawless manner, without appropriate authority, in violation of their own rules and regulations, despite never objecting to the prior resolutions reached with the federal government, and despite a complete failure by the state to even reach out to Amos’ known counsel, Robert Barnes.
The state’s own rules require advance notice, reasonable time frames for inspections, and a showing of credentials, none of which occurred here. Instead, the state unlawfully obtained a search warrant, based on materially false statements in an affidavit by a high-ranking state official in an agency with a known grievance against independent farmers like Amos, and, after the raid and finding no evidence of wrongdoing, then illegally ordered detained every item of food in one of Amos Miller’s coolers, including buffalo meat not even subject to federal regulation.
The detention order is patently illegal under Pennsylvania law. Despite the constant harassment, Amos will continue to do all he legally can to provide the food his members deeply need. Amos thanks you for your continued support at this critical time for food freedom in America.