So to speak. Last week, kos front paged and
excellent diary by mbw about the huge Indian Trust class action lawsuit currently in the courts. As much as $150 billion (yes, BILLION) in land and mineral leases have not been accounted for and paid to indigenous people of the U.S. The case was filed nearly a decade ago, and the judge, Royce Lambert, has been very critical at the fed's lack of cooperation. Two Secretaries of the Interior - Gale Norton and Bruce Babbitt before her - have been found in comtempt of course. All this is discussed in mbw's diary & comments. I direct you there to read those, with more BG information available at
mbw's Wampum blog.
Recently, Judge Lamberth awarded several million dollars to the plaintiffs for their legal costs, citing the government's monumental lack of cooperation. The day after mbw's diary went up, news broke that DoI was planning to pay those fees in good part by cutting funding too all tribes across the board.
mbw added the following news as an update, but probably after many people had moved on from that diary. For that reason, I'm posting about it in a little more detail, while the Indian Trust class action suit is still fresh in readers' minds.
The story was picked up by AP, going out Thursday February 2, and appearing in numerous papers around the country on Friday. From the Kansas City Star:
Interior Department officials, ordered to pay $7 million to lawyers for American Indians suing the government over lost royalties, cut Indian programs to find most of the money.
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The Indian plaintiffs called the decision a "devious and deceptive" attempt to punish Indians for winning in court...[Lead plaintiff Elouise] Cobell said the department knew it would be asked to pay attorney's fees and should have set aside a fund ahead of time. She said she would fight the department's decision.
"This is an old tactic Interior has used for years _ try to divide and conquer," Cobell said. "Congress should be very upset."
Link to full text of the DoI letter (pdf), signed by "Associate Deputy Secretary" (ain't that a catchy title?) James Cason.
I came across an interesting website, Harvard University's Nieman Watchdog (Questions the Press Should Ask with some good in-depth discussion on this issue (amongst others). From DC attorney Lee Helfrich, in response to an Interior Dept. spokesman Ross Swimmer:
As Interior's spokesman on the Cobell v. Interior saga, Ross Swimmer surely knows that no press representatives are going to be as one-sided in their coverage as Interior may prefer. Still, Interior may be dismayed with editorial boards that have addressed the case, most of whom have called upon Interior to pay up and clean up.
The editorials have largely focused on the poverty in Indian Country. Although Mr. Swimmer has suggested elsewhere that poverty is the result of socio-economic factors beyond Interior's control, squandering valuable Indian land assets cannot be overlooked as a cause. From my perspective, even Indians in the top 1% deserve a full Trust Accounting, which is not what Interior is providing.
An earlier piece from Helfrich:
The Interior Department grouses so much about Lamberth's descriptions of its actions inside and outside the courtroom, that this past August it filed an unusual and improper motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals seeking to kick him off the case for bias. The appellate court refused to consider Interior's request until sometime next spring. Whatever that result, actions still speak louder than words. Under this adage, Interior's antics are hardly deserving of judicial praise. The adage applies equally to judicial actions. Contrary to Interior's suggestions, Lamberth's ire has not uniformly resulted in benefits to the Cobell plaintiffs.
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Generally speaking, false statements to a court and dishonesty or deceit are ethical violations, at least for lawyers.
For a Trustee, which Interior is, to knock on that door understandably bothers the judge. Trustees owe an absolute duty of loyalty and honesty to their beneficiaries. Interior's conduct in the courtroom is not balanced by its efforts in dealing with the Trust Fund mess. Fixing 100-plus years of neglect is no doubt difficult, especially with limited funding, but so far Interior has opted for the easier repairs, the meager results of which it uses to dismiss its critics.
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For Interior, the question to ask is "why?" Why is it litigating so hard to dilute its responsibilities to Indians? Why is it hiding the full extent of its historic neglect and disregard of its Trust obligations from the courts, Congress, the public and the Indians themselves? Why is it trying to minimize its damage to Indian interests? Why is Interior putting its own institutional and industry's interests above those to whom it owes the highest duty known to law? Why is Interior refusing to acknowledge that its conflicting priorities disable it from meeting its Trust duties? Why is it refusing to entertain settlement? Why is it even fighting so hard to retain control over Indian issues?
Enough to give a flavor. Follow the links for more in-depth discussion, with yet more links to be found there. Website for the plaintiffs here.