by Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Washington Post
On the final day of Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton's contempt trial, a
federal judge said his court had been "duped" by Interior and Justice
department officials about their efforts to overhaul a trust fund for
Indians, a stark suggestion that the secretary has failed to convince the
court that the Bush administration could repair the $500 million-per-year
account.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth frequently interrupted the closing
statements of lawyers for the Native American plaintiffs and for the
government to voice his frustrations with the six-year-old trust fund case.
He criticized Norton's efforts to repair a fund that has been so poorly
managed since its 1887 inception that the 500,000 Indian shareholders say
they are now owed about $10 billion in lost or missing funds.
After scoffing at the testimony of a Justice Department official about the
status of checks that were to have been mailed to Indians weeks ago,
Lamberth said: "It was all just a word game . . . and on the 29th day of a
contempt trial, if I'm still playing word games with the government, it's
almost beyond belief how the court is ever going to gain control of this
system."
Lamberth's remarks came in the closing moments of the second contempt trial
held as part of a massive lawsuit filed in 1996 by Native Americans over the
alleged mismanagement of billions of dollars in royalties or leasing rights
on more than 11 million acres of Indian land.
Norton and Neal McCaleb, the assistant secretary for Indian affairs, are
facing five contempt charges that allege that they failed to follow court
orders or covered up failures in their attempts to clean up the account.
Their trial, stretching from early December through yesterday, is the second
time in three years that Lamberth has called Cabinet-level officers into
court for disregarding his orders to repair the system.
In 1999, Lamberth held in contempt Bruce Babbitt and Robert E. Rubin,
interior secretary and treasury secretary, respectively, in the Clinton
administration. The government was ordered to pay $625,000 in the Indians'
attorney's fees as a sanction.
The stakes this time around are higher.
Lamberth warned the Interior Department in 1999 that he would give it "one
more chance" to repair the trust account system or face the possibility of
him placing it in receivership.
Nearly three years later, a new computer system that was to dramatically
improve credibility in the accounting has proved to be "a total failure,"
Lamberth said. Computer security for the trust was so poor that Lamberth
ordered all of the Interior Department's Internet sites to shut down in
December because hackers could gain access to the trust fund data through
them.
Norton, who testified in her defense during the trial, has proposed creating
a new department within Interior to better handle the complex array of
payments to 500,000 Indian shareholders through about 100 offices around the
country.
But a court-appointed special master has reported that the government
program is in such disarray and dysfunction that it should be placed in
receivership, an idea that the Indians favor.
"The trust is in crisis. Something has to be done now," Dennis M. Gingold,
the Indians' lead attorney, said in his closing statement yesterday. "The
contempt in this case is clear. The disdain is clear. You've got to do
something."
Mark Nagle, the assistant U.S. attorney representing the government, readily
admitted that officials had done a poor job of managing the fund and had not
informed Lamberth of all of their shortcomings, but he defended the senior
Interior officials against the contempt charges.
"We are not arguing for a complete vindication or exoneration," Nagle told
Lamberth. "We neither underestimate the gravity of the problem or the
magnitude of the court's concern . . . but the actions here do not rise to
the level of a fraud committed on this court."
for more information: click here
|
