FBI agents posed as documentary filmmakers to talk to militia members during an armed standoff in the Nevada desert, then used the recorded interviews against two men now on trial in federal court.

The undercover operation, detailed during testimony in federal court Wednesday, shows the extent of the FBI's operation to infiltrate militia groups that organized tense standoffs with federal officials in Nevada in 2014 and Oregon in 2016.

Militia members, now facing charges in Nevada, were heavily armed as they flocked to the property of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy in 2014. Bundy, who owed the government about $1 million in grazing fees, sparked the standoff with agents of the Bureau of Land Management after refusing to pay up.

The standoff reached a boiling point as BLM agents trying to impound Bundy's cattle were prevented from doing so at gunpoint by militia members, forcing federal officials to withdraw.

On Wednesday, FBI Special Agent Charles Johnson testified about how agents crossed into the other side of the standoff pretending to be documentary makers to talk to the militia, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.



Among the people interviewed for the fake documentary, America Reloaded, were two men now on trial in Nevada for the standoff, Scott Drexler and Eric Parker.

"I want to stand for the Constitution," Parker told the undercover agents in a recording played in the court Wednesday, according to the Review Journal.