On this date in 1950, Uncle Sam was $500 richer, thanks to a grateful North Dakota businessman who had a deep and lasting love for his country.

Here’s the complete story as it appeared in the paper that day:

Uncle Sam was $500 richer this week, thanks to a grateful North Dakota businessman who has a deep and lasting love for his country.

J. S. Lamb, internal revenue collector for North Dakota, said in Fargo Wednesday that the money was enclosed with a federal income tax return.

With the form was a letter which read: “The other check for $500 is to witness our gratitude to a free, good land for its opportunities and blessings enjoyed by us and our enumerated exemptions.

“Considering the prosperity and freedom we have known and wishing to do more than is required of us, we make this gift to help keep our country free.”

Lamb said the $500 is being forwarded to Washington where it will be credited to the national defense fund.

MINOT — It’s been a long time coming, but North Dakotans are getting some justice for what was perpetrated on them by left-wing extremists during violent protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

First, a jury in Morton County found Greenpeace civilly liable,

to the tune of some $660 million,

for assisting the frequently unlawful protests. The plaintiff in the case was Energy Transfer Partners, the company that built and operates the pipeline.

Now, a federal judge has found the federal government, then under the control of President Barack Obama,

liable for more than $37 million in costs

incurred by the state of North Dakota while responding the protests (the court awarded roughly $28 million, subtracting a $10 million grant awarded during President Trump’s first term in office).

Judge Dan Traynor excoriated the federal government in his ruling. “The United States left North Dakota alone to defend itself from the violent and tumultuous protests,” he wrote.

“While North Dakota was drowning in the chaos of the Protests, the United States dropped an anvil into the pool and turned up the turmoil,” he continued.

The Obama administration “encouraged [and] supported protesters to remain and be at the DAPL Protests,” and because of these things, the federal government is liable for the heavy costs incurred by North Dakota taxpayers as a result of the months-long demonstrations.

Traynor found that the federal government allowed protesters to occupy federal land illegally, against its policies, despite being fully aware that the land was being used to launch violent and unlawful attacks against the pipeline project and law enforcement.

The Obama administration did not intervene to assist our state in putting a stop to the violence, despite apparent unlawful activity and a clear federal nexus. They didn’t enforce the law when protesters used federal land as a launch pad for their attacks. The Obama administration even

refused to send federal law enforcement resources to assist.

This was a dereliction of duty on par with President Donald Trump watching,

on television,

his supporters violently assault Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. But the Jan. 6 riot went on for a day. The Dakota Access Pipeline protests lasted for months.

Nor was it only the Obama administration that chose to stand aside while North Dakota burned. Our state’s law enforcement resources were completely overrun, yet when our state put out a call to other states for personnel, many states with Democratic leadership refused to assist,

bowing to pressure from left-wing activists.

“Early on, we had a number of states support our request for peace officer support,” Maj. Gen. Al Dohrmann of the North Dakota National Guard

told me in a December 2016 interview

. “Unfortunately, all jurisdictions that supported us were subject to protest in their own cities and capitols for providing support to North Dakota, along with intense pressure from various groups to not support North Dakota’s efforts to maintain the peace and rule of law.”

President Obama could have helped put an end to the protests swiftly and peacefully, but he didn’t.

As the nation’s top elected Democrat, he could have urged state-level Democrats to put politics aside and help, but he didn’t.

For that, he owes North Dakota an apology.

A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must pay $28 million to the state of North Dakota to cover damages caused by protesters who gathered by the thousands in 2016 and 2017 to object to the since-completed Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) project. The pipeline currently carries more than a half a million gallons of crude oil a day across four states. 

U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor on April 23 found that the Corps “abandoned the rule of law” when it didn’t enforce its own procedures by either forcing them to leave or requiring protesters to get a special use permit to use federally owned land for their encampment. Traynor determined that the Corps is at fault for negligence, public nuisance and civil trespass. 

In his ruling, Traynor said the Corps intentionally avoided its duty to require a mandated special use permit and falsely announced that a permit had been granted, which prevented law enforcement from removing the protestors. 

“Essentially, the Corps invited and encouraged the DAPL protestors and their violent and tumultuous behavior on and off Corps-managed land, and North Dakota had to clean up the mess,” Traynor wrote.

“For months, North Dakota dealt with protest activity that originated from Corps-managed land, spread to other areas of North Dakota, and endangered the health and safety of North Dakota, its citizens, its property and its law enforcement officers who kept the peace at the protests,” he added.  

Protestors camped near the state’s Standing Rock Reservation to try to stop the pipeline’s construction. The project was not located on the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe but ran underneath Lake Oahe, the reservations source for drinking water, which was seen as polluting and desecrating Native American land. 

Traynor called the damage to state and private property caused by the protest “unfathomable … human excrement pits, shoddily constructed structures used for housing, makeshift roadways, burnt public vehicles and violent clashes with law enforcement were common throughout the events of this case.”

North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong (R) applauded the ruling as a “major win for North Dakota and the rule of law.” 

In its complaint against the Corps, filed in 2019, the state sought $38-million to cover damages caused by the encampment that it estimates reached between 5,500 and 8,000 people at its peak. 

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said in a news release that the federal government reimbursed the state $10 million in 2017 to pay for some of the damages caused by the protest. In addition, Dallas-based oil and gas company and pipeline developer and operator Energy Transfer provided $15 million that same year to the state to cover protest-related costs. 

In a separate case in March, a North Dakota jury decided that the environmental nonprofit Greenpeace must pay $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer as Greenpeace took part in a publicity campaign that delayed the pipeline and increased the cost by $300 million. Greenpeace plans to appeal the verdict. 

A Corps spokesperson declined to comment on the judgment against it, saying that the Corps does not comment on litigation. The U.S. Dept. of Justice, which represented the Corps in the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it will appeal the decision.