Interior Department violated court orders by deleting e-mail, lawyers say
The Associated Press
By: Matt Kelley
Associated Press Writer
September 15, 2000
Lawyers for a group of American Indians asked a federal judge Friday to fine Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt for violating court orders requiring him to preserve e-mail and other records.
Friday’s filing is the latest dispute over records in the lawsuit over mismanagement of a $500 million system of trust accounts for about 500,000 Indians. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth held Babbitt and other officials in contempt of court last year for their agencies’ failures to keep and turn over records.
Lamberth’s orders since 1996 have required Interior Department officials to preserve records involving the trust accounts, including e-mails. But the Indians’ lawyers wrote to Lamberth that e-mail from agencies such as the Office of Trust Fund Management and Interior Department lawyers were routinely deleted, though department officials testified that they were being kept.
For example, Interior Department lawyers in a Billings, Mont., office were not told to keep copies of their e-mails until last Dec. 14 – and even some of those were erased this year, government lawyers acknowledged in previous court filings.
The Indians’ lawyers asked Lamberth to fine Babbitt and Bureau of Indian Affairs head Kevin Gover for violating court orders to keep the e-mail files.
“They continue to deceive us and it’s typical of what we have to work with,” said Elouise Cobell, the Blackfeet banker who is the lead plaintiff in the Indians’ lawsuit.
Interior Department spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna referred questions to the Justice Department, which is defending the government in court. Justice Department spokeswoman Christine Romano did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment Friday.
Last December, Lamberth ruled that the government had severely mismanaged the accounts and said he would oversee efforts to reform the system. Lamberth also ruled he would require the government to determine how much money should be in the accounts. Lawyers for the Indians say the account holders are due more than $10 billion.
A federal appeals court heard the government’s appeal of Lamberth’s ruling earlier this month.
The trust accounts came from an 1887 federal law that divided some reservation land into smaller plots for individual Indians. The federal government holds that land in trust for the Indians – meaning it cannot be taxed or sold and the government must approve any leases.
Many of the tracts are leased for uses such as grazing, logging, mining or oil drilling. Proceeds from those leases are supposed to be deposited in government accounts and then paid to the Indian landholders.
Since the beginning, however, those accounts have been mismanaged in almost every way imaginable, the government acknowledges. Records for many accounts were never kept, while documentation for others was lost or destroyed. Some of the money was stolen or used for other federal programs. Some lease proceeds were never collected. Thousands of the accounts have money in them but no names attached.
On the Net:
Bureau of Indian Affairs: http://www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.html
Native American Rights Fund: http://www.narf.org
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