by Robert Gehrke
Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) _ A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Interior Secretary
Gale Norton to stand trial on contempt allegations related to a long-running
lawsuit accusing her of mismanagement of a billion-dollar Indian trust fund.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth set a trial date of Dec. 3 for Norton and
Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb to show why they
shouldn’t be held in contempt.
The lawsuit stems from the mismanagement of royalties from mining, grazing,
timber harvesting and other activities on 54 million acres of Indian land
held in trust by the Interior Department since 1887.
Payments were supposed to be made to the Indian beneficiaries, but much of
the money was lost, misappropriated, stolen or never collected.
Specifically, Norton will have to show that her office has complied with
Lamberth’s 1999 order that the Interior Department piece together how much
is owed to 300,000 Indians who sued the agency claiming it has squandered
more than $10 billion in royalties over more than a century.
Norton also must prove that she did not file false or misleading reports
about the status of the accounting and the department’s current system of
tracking the Indian royalties.
Dennis Gingold, the attorney for the Indians in the class action suit,
praised Lamberth’s decision to hold a trial.
“It confirms everything we’ve said about the unfitness of the Secretary of
Interior to continue to manage the Indian trust,’ he said.
In 1999, Lamberth held former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and former
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in contempt and fined them $600,000 for
failing to produce documents in the case.
At an Oct. 30 hearing, Lamberth scolded the Interior Department’s lawyer and
advised the lawyer to “throw yourself on the mercy of the court,’ rather
than defending conduct he called “so clearly contemptuous.’
Interior spokesman Eric Ruff said strides have been taken to improve the
management of the trust fund and comply with court orders since Norton took
office, including the creation of a new office specifically dedicated to
trust fund management.
“Such progress is evidence of the department’s commitment and determination
to resolve the Indian trust issue,’ Ruff said in a statement.
In recent filings, department lawyers conceded that Interior has struggled
with efforts to reform, but they argued that department officials have done
nothing to directly violate a court order which would justify a finding of
contempt.
In 1999, Lamberth ordered Interior to fix the system and account for the
lost money, but the department has failed to do either despite spending $614
million on the effort, according to reports by court-appointed watchdogs.
The plaintiffs have asked on several occasions that the judge schedule a
trial on whether Norton should be held in contempt. Other motions are still
pending.
Gingold has also asked that the judge strip Interior of its trust
responsibilities.
Lamberth has scheduled a hearing on Friday to determine who may be needed to
testify at the Dec. 3 contempt trial.
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