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Wednesday August 15, 2001 |
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Treasury Department Retrained Lawyers After Rubin Was Cited in Case, Papers Say |
by John J. Fialka Staff Reporter of The Wall StreetJournal The Wall Street Journal WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department gave more than 2,000 of its lawyers retraining in legal ethics and federal-court rules after former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was cited for failing to respond to court orders in a case involving allegations of mishandling trust funds for American Indians.
The unusual 1999 retraining effort was disclosed in court papers ordered released by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth here after lawyers for Dow Jones & Co., which publishes The Wall Street Journal, moved to have them unsealed.
No details on the cost of the retraining or how long the course took were included in the papers. Lawyers for the Treasury agency had asserted that releasing the information violated its lawyers' privacy rights. The department had no comment yesterday on the documents' release.
The case involves allegations that there have been widespread losses from Indian accounts due to mishandled records and a slipshod accounting system run by the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs. The actual accounts are kept by the Treasury, and the Justice Department has been called in to defend the actions of the two agencies in the case.
The Indians are asking the government for a complete accounting of all their funds. About $500 million a year flows through the accounts. Release of the information isn't expected to affect the outcome of the case, but it provides new embarrassing details about how the government has wrestled with the allegations.
In an opinion accompanying his order to release the papers, Judge Lamberth said the public's right to know about such cases "can not be overstated." While applauding the Treasury's retraining effort, he noted that "it stands in marked contrast to the dearth of corrective action taken by the Interior Department and the Justice Department," whose lawyers have been involved in the five-year-old case.
Signaling he could take further punitive actions, the judge said the federal government is engaged in a "continued breach of its substantial trust responsibilities" to control a banking system it has run on behalf of individual Indians and Indian tribes since the 19th century.
The Treasury documents released by the judge blamed "poor communication between two sets of senior attorneys" in the agency. According to the papers, it resulted in a three-month gap in 1999 between when Treasury lawyers found that canceled checks possibly related to the case were being destroyed and when the lawyers informed senior agency officials about it.
The gap occurred while Mr. Rubin was being tried by Judge Lamberth for contempt charges for failing to respond to court deadlines.
The Treasury probe resulted in reprimands to four lower-level lawyers for "failing" to communicate, but found no "substantial evidence" that they intentionally sought to hide information. It found that Neal Wolin, then the agency's general counsel, was unaware of the destruction of documents until three months after his lawyers discovered it. Some of the checks, government payments to Indians that were being routinely destroyed, according to the Treasury Department, may have been among those covered by a court order.
Judge Lamberth, who already has determined that the U.S. breached its trust responsibilities in the case, will hold a second trial next year that will attempt to determine how much Indian money might have been lost through government mishandling of trust fund records. Dennis Gingold, an attorney for Indian plaintiffs in the class action, claims it could be as much as $10 billion. Lawyers for the government assert that provable losses are minimal.
So far, the government has balked during several attempts to settle the case.
Mr. Gingold, said he will soon file a series of motions to hold federal officials and lawyers for the three agencies in contempt for allegedly failing to respond to court orders for documents and for corrective action by the agencies. "We're talking about a fraud perpetrated on this court," he said.
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« August » « 2001 »
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08/28/01 |
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Trust fund holders call for contempt |
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08/27/01 |
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Plaintiffs press judge to hold Norton, other government officials in contempt |
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08/25/01 |
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Total Lack of Trust |
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08/24/01 |
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Peter Maas, Writer Who Chronicled the Mafia, Dies at 72 Mr. Maas's last article, scheduled to appear Sept. 9 in Parade magazine, was an interview with Elouise Cobell |
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08/22/01 |
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Lawyer urges Interior misconduct probe |
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08/21/01 |
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300,000 Indians cheated by incompetent feds |
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08/20/01 |
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Der Bund (Berne, Switzerland) Where did the money go? |
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08/19/01 |
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A tale of deceit, abuse in D.C. Report: Interior lied about system tracking Indian trust accounts |
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[ view ] |
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08/17/01 |
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Justice plans action for destroyed trust records |
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[ view ] |
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08/17/01 |
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No more delays on trust fund |
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[ view ] |
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08/15/01 |
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Light punishment for destroyed trust fund records |
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08/15/01 |
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Treasury Department Retrained Lawyers After Rubin Was Cited in Case, Papers Say |
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[ view ] |
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08/15/01 |
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U.S. agency admits errors in Indian case; Records destroyed on cash payouts |
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[ view ] |
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08/15/01 |
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Discipline records on trusts unsealed |
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[ view ] |
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08/15/01 |
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Treasury inquiry finds no wrongdoing in destruction of Indian affairs documents |
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08/10/01 |
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Interior Dept. Misled Court On Reforms, Report Says |
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08/10/01 |
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Court report criticizes trust fund software |
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08/10/01 |
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Babbitt Misled Judge About New System For Indian Trust Funds, Report Alleges |
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08/09/01 |
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Computer system designed to track Indian money may not be salvageable |
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08/07/01 |
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Trust fund holders want trial against Bush officials |
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