(Washington, D.C., April 30, 2025) – U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins today hosted Charles and Heather Maude at the U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters alongside U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and members of Congress to address the senseless politically motivated prosecution waged by the Biden Administration over 25 acres of federal land. This comes after the Trump Administration announced that the U.S. government has dropped criminal charges against the Maude family.

At Secretary Rollins’ direction, USDA is launching a new web portal for potential victims of ongoing lawfare originating under the Biden Administration to submit their concerns and experiences. This site is active at www.usda.gov/lawfare.

“President Trump is directing his cabinet to ensure no citizen of this country is unfairly targeted on politically motivated witch hunts. That is what happened to the Maudes and I am working to ensure no farmer, rancher or customer who works with USDA will ever endure baseless political persecution,” said Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. “I am calling on any individuals who are currently enduring lawfare conducted by USDA to visit www.usda.gov/lawfare and submit a form. My team will promptly work to address the situation.”

“I'm so grateful to the Maude family for their strength. I'm so disgusted by the Biden administration that they would do this and persecute a family and threat to take their children away from them just because they wanted to be political. South Dakota’s motto has always been ‘Under God, the people rule.’ The power was given in our Constitution to the people, and that we should always respect that and recognize that many of the wrongs that were done under the last administration can be fixed, and are being fixed every single day because of leaders like Secretary Rollins, and because President Trump is in the White House and he's bold and he's fearless and he's taking action,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

"This situation hits close to home for me — the Maude's ranch is just 70 miles down the road from my own. The Maude family has been put through hell by an overreaching federal government. I am honored to have played a part alongside Sec. Rollins and the Trump Administration to restore sanity, fairness, and justice," said South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden.

“Hard work and common sense have finally prevailed. We want to thank President Trump and his team for working closely with us and the Maude family to right this wrong. I am happy to see we have finally reached a positive resolution but this massive government overreach from the Biden administration should have never happened in the first place, and we must continue our work to stop this from ever happening again," said Senator Mike Rounds.

"Gone are the days of a government working against the people; under the leadership of President Donald Trump and his administration, like Secretary Rollins and Attorney General Bondi, we now – once again – have a government of, by and FOR the people. The case against the Maudes is a glaring example of the dangers of unelected bureaucrats with far too much power weaponizing the full force of the federal government in an unconstitutional effort to make felons out of farmers. Sadly, this type of behavior was commonplace during the past four years but President Trump knows firsthand the catastrophic implications of lawfare imposed by an overreaching government and the dismissal of this case shows that ‘business as usual’ is no more"  said Representative Harriet Hageman.

The Maudes were alerted by the United States Forest Service that fencing on their property blocked access to the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and in good faith agreed to a survey of the property lines. After the survey was completed, the Maudes lives were turned upside down by the Biden Administration where a simple civil dispute over 25 acres of federal land turned into a costly, invasive, and unnecessary criminal prosecution.