Govt Hindering Probe Of US Indian Money
Dow Jones Newswires
February 13, 2001
WASHINGTON (AP)--Government lawyers have interfered with a court-appointed investigator's probe of record-keeping for billions of dollars of American Indians' money, the investigator told the Justice Department. The official, Alan Balaran, wrote to Justice Department lawyer Phillip Brooks Jan. 31, complaining that some Justice and Interior Department lawyers "have launched a misguided campaign to undermine my authority." Balaran oversees and investigates problems with record-keeping for a system of federal accounts holding proceeds from oil drilling and other uses of Native American lands. The more than 300,000 Indians who have accounts are suing the government, saying mismanagement over more than a century cost them more than $10 billion.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth held former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in contempt of court in 1999 for problems in turning over account records. Lamberth appointed Balaran, a Washington lawyer, to act as the court's overseer of the government's attempts to gather and preserve the account records. Balaran has repeatedly cited Interior and Treasury for violating court orders, including waiting for months to notify Lamberth about the inadvertent destruction of records and keeping files in a trash heap on a North Dakota reservation. He announced Monday that he was launching a formal probe of the Interior Department's Office of Trust Records, which was formed to handle the records involved in the lawsuit. In his letter to Brooks, Balaran wrote that witnesses told him unnamed government lawyers "publicly call into question my ability to read, ... liken my investigations to those undertaken by television characters, ... (and) insist that I have never practiced law." "I will not tolerate what I consider to be a transparent attempt to undermine the court's orders and I will not accept the conduct of any official who creates an environment where employees fear reprisal simply for contacting my office," Balaran wrote.
Justice Department spokeswoman Christine Romano didn't immediately return telephone messages seeking comment Tuesday. In a reply to Balaran, Brooks wrote that Justice Department lawyers "dispute your perception" that they were trying to frustrate his investigations. "I can, however, assure you that every member of this litigation team has been, and remains, committed to assisting you in the timely and efficient accomplishment of your responsibilities," Brooks wrote.
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