The USDA is heralding its dismissal of criminal charges against a South Dakotan ranching couple as a sign the Trump administration is stopping the federal persecution of agriculture.

Apart from dropping its indictments against Charles and Heather Maude of Caputa, S.D., who were accused of stealing government property last year, the USDA is vowing to cease other “politically motivated witch hunts” against farmers and ranchers.

“We are ending regulation by prosecution in America and investigating how and why this wrongful prosecution of an American ranching couple occurred in the first place,” said USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins during a April 30 press conference announcing the decision.

In June 2024, the Maudes were charged with illegally cultivating crops and grazing cattle on roughly 25 acres of federal grasslands owned by the U.S. Forest Service, a division of USDA.

The indictments were met with outrage from livestock organizations and others, who argued the Biden administration had needlessly escalated an ordinary land dispute, which belongs in civil court, into a criminal prosecution.

“We knew we were innocent of any wrongdoing and sought to find a resolution, but that was not forthcoming from the other side,” Heather Maude said at the press conference.

At the time, the U.S. Forest Service denied allegations of government overreach, claiming it had already exhausted administrative procedures before referring the matter to the U.S. Justice Department.

However, the USDA has now characterized the indictments as a “senseless politically motivated prosecution” and has urged other farmers and ranchers who believe they’re victims of such “lawfare” to report their concerns to the agency through a new online portal.

“This is for all Americans who have been treated unfairly by their government,” said Rollins of USDA.

Rollins was joined in condemning the criminal case by Kristi Noem, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and former governor of South Dakota, who said the indictments were a “purposeful attack” on the Maudes and their livelihood.

“They did not have to take this action. They chose to take this aggressive persecution of this family to the extent they did. There are already provisions in law that would allow the Forest Service to resolve this,” Noem said.

The dismissal was applauded by the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, or R-CALF, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, who rarely agree on matters of policy but said the government had been “overzealous” in bringing criminal charges that could result in 10-year prison terms and fines of $250,000.

The Western Justice Legislative Fund, which aims to defend rural residents from government overreach, believes the decision shows the Trump administration is serious about “helping root out and get rid of all the corruption” in federal agencies.

Until now, “unelected bureaucrats” working for the federal government “have been exacting retribution on anyone who does not comply with their demands,” which has driven many ranchers out of business, said Dave Duquette, the group’s executive director.

Not everyone is impressed with the USDA’s reversal in the Maude case or believes it’s an example of improved government accountability, though.

The Trump administration’s dismissal of the criminal charges is “consistent with its own undercutting of the rule of law and attacks on the judiciary,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis and history at Pomona College who has tracked the case and studied the federal conflicts with ranchers.

The USDA’s announcement is an attempt to politicize a legal dispute that should’ve been sorted out in court, where the details of the underlying property conflict would have become clear, Miller said. “This brushes it under the rug and hides it from public view.”

The agency’s new portal for complaints about “lawfare” is also troubling, as it undermines federal land managers and their ability to resolve disputes with farmers and ranchers through established procedures, he said.

“That makes it impossible for those on the ground to do the work they are supposed to do,” Miller said. “It’s a new era but it’s a new lawless era, because it subverts the law and does so by design.”