by Bill McAllister
Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief
The Denver Post
WASHINGTON – Interior Secretary Gale Norton and a top aide were ordered
Wednesday to stand trial for contempt of court over their handling of
billions of dollars the government holds in trust accounts for American
Indians.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said that Norton and Bureau of Indian
Affairs director Neal McCaleb may have violated his orders in a massive
lawsuit over the government’s acknowledged mishandling of the accounts.
If Norton and McCaleb are formally cited for contempt in proceedings that
begin in Lamberth’s court Monday, they would become the first senior Bush
administration officials to be disciplined by a federal judge.
Both are expected to vigorously challenge the judge’s proposed contempt order.
At stake in the suit are more than 300,000 accounts, said by lawyers in the
case to be worth as much as $10 billion. The accounts, some of them more
than 100 years old, are supposed to hold royalties from the sale of oil, gas
and minerals found on Indian lands.
Government officials have conceded they cannot say for certain how much
money should be in the accounts and Lamberth has directed both Clinton and
Bush administration officials to provide a complete accounting of the funds.
In 1999, Lamberth held then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Treasury
Secretary Robert Rubin and BIA director Kevin Gover in contempt, fining them
$625,000.
This time, lawyers for the Indians who filed the lawsuit have asked that
Norton, a former attorney general in Colorado, be jailed for her actions.
That would be extremely rare for a Cabinet secretary.
Since the 1999 fine, Lamberth has said publicly that the next time he will
force any officials to pay the fines out of their own funds – not with
taxpayer funds as the three Clinton officials did.
Norton spokesman Eric Ruff issued a statement after the judge released his
order citing the secretary and BIA director McCaleb, saying both officials
“remain committed to trust reform. The matters in the court order reach back
to 1999 and present a complex set of facts and circumstances.”
Interior officials had no immediate comment on the judge’s action. It came
despite pleadings filed by government lawyers that Norton’s actions were not
“clearly contemptuous” as Lamberth had suggested in a recent hearing.
The judge said Norton and McCaleb, an American Indian who is a former
Oklahoma highway official, must appear before him to show cause why they
should not be held in contempt for their failure to conduct an historical
accounting of the trust accounts as the judge ordered in 1999.
Lamberth also cited Norton and McCaleb for failing to tell him that a much
heralded computer system was not working, and for filing false and
misleading quarterly reports to the court about the computer and efforts to
reconcile the trust accounts.
Norton recently announced an initiative to move the trust accounts from the
much troubled BIA and place them under former BIA director Ross Swimmer. She
said that step would help bring the department into compliance with the
judge’s orders.
But the move has won only partial support form tribal leaders and has been
strongly opposed by some Democrats in Congress.
“Nothing has changed,” said Denver lawyer Dennis Gingold, who has been the
legal mastermind behind the Indians’ lawsuit. “She is doing exactly what
Bruce Babbitt did.”
Although Congress has repeatedly urged the case be settled out of court,
Gingold separately disclosed that the latest efforts to resolve the case –
including a secret meeting of all parties in Boulder on Aug. 9 – have
failed.
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