Stewardship of Indian Funds, Court Order at Issue
by Bill Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Washington Post
A federal judge warned yesterday that he will hold Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, other government officials and lawyers accountable for not obeying his order to reform a long-mismanaged Indian trust fund, saying they apparently misled him.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said he was considering holding Norton and others in contempt of court in the long-running battle over the government’s stewardship of billions of dollars set aside for Native Americans. He gave government lawyers until Nov. 15 to respond to allegations that Norton and other Interior Department officials joined with lawyers to cover up problems in the overhaul of the trust fund’s operations.
“I hope the government in that filing will tell me who’s in charge of trust reform,” Lamberth said during an hour-long hearing yesterday. “It’s not clear to me who’s in charge. If it’s allegedly the secretary, she sure doesn’t act like it.”
The judge set a follow-up hearing for Nov. 30 and raised the possibility that could be the starting date for civil or criminal contempt proceedings.
Lamberth’s comments about the case were his most critical since appointing a special monitor six months ago to track the progress of reforms. The monitor, Joseph S. Kieffer III, has submitted five reports accusing Norton and others of repeatedly trumpeting their progress in court even though little headway was actually being made.
Norton, who took office in January, has said she is determined to resolve a crisis that had been decades in the making. Court rulings and congressional reports have concluded that the government has had a long history of neglecting the trust fund, which was set up more than 100 years ago to compensate Native Americans for the use of their land.
The government is supposed to manage and pass along to Indians and their heirs the royalties from the sale of petroleum, natural gas, timber and other natural resources. But records have been scattered across the country and are in chronic disarray, and officials are unable to say exactly how much is due 300,000 trust account-holders.
Lamberth ordered the Interior Department to repair the system in December 1999, acting on a class action lawsuit filed by Native American plaintiffs led by Elouise P. Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet tribe of Montana. At the time, he said the Indians were entitled to a historical accounting that would show just how much money was generated by the land and into which accounts the royalties were to go.
Instead of complying with his order, Lamberth said, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed off on a plan to review a smaller, statistical sampling of the accounts. Soon after taking office, Norton agreed to pursue statistical sampling, too.
“What is there left to try with Secretary Norton?” Lamberth asked government lawyers. “Her first action was so contemptuous, I don’t know what we’re going to try. Do you?”
Lamberth said Norton appeared to have played a pivotal role in the filing of a recent report with the court that stated that the Interior Department was making significant progress in straightening out the accounting system. Kieffer found that rosy picture wasn’t the case, saying that the report was “inaccurate, untruthful, and incomplete.”
Dennis M. Gingold, a lawyer for the Native Americans, urged Lamberth to move quickly with contempt proceedings against Norton, Babbitt and 37 other current and former government managers and attorneys, including lawyers from the Justice Department. He noted that this wasn’t the first time the judge is contemplating action. In 1999, Lamberth found Babbitt, then-Interior official Kevin Gover and then-Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin in contempt for failing to produce records.
Mark E. Nagle, part of a new team of government lawyers on the case, asked Lamberth to give the government until Dec. 15 to answer the contempt allegations, insisting that the lawyers wanted to fully investigate what took place. Lamberth gave him until Nov. 15.
“What facts do you need to get?” Lamberth asked. “I think you better throw yourself at the mercy of the court and come down and get your trial.”
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