by Bill McAllister
Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief
The Denver Post
WASHINGTON – Lawyers for the Colorado-based Native American Rights Fund
asked a federal judge Monday to make public an internal report on six
Treasury Department lawyers accused of improper conduct in the handling of
Indian trust records.
Treasury officials are attempting to keep the report secret, saying it deals
with personnel issues.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth has not indicated when he might rule
on a request from Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to seal the report on
the lawyers’ conduct. Dow Jones Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal,
has asked Lamberth for the right to intervene in the case so it can argue
for releasing the report.
The maneuvering is the latest example of tensions over the admitted
mishandling of trust accounts that the Interior Department maintains for
more than 300,000 Native Americans. Lamberth has held that the government
has breached its trust responsibility to the Indians and has ordered a trial
on how much the Indians should be paid for damages.
Congress recently urged the Interior Department to settle, but the parties
remain at odds in the 4-year-old lawsuit.
The latest confrontation results from Lamberth’s order for a special master
to investigate the conduct of the six Treasury Department lawyers. The
master held that the lawyers violated the rules of professional conduct and
that their statements to the judge constituted a potential fraud.
A key issue in the Treasury Department’s involvement is the destruction of
162 boxes of documents discovered in a Maryland warehouse between November
1998 and January 1999.
Treasury lawyers did not tell Lamberth of the documents’ destruction until
May 1999, after top officials had been found in contempt of court for
failing to safeguard and produce key documents.
The class-action suit was filed by the Boulder-based Native American Rights
Fund and others.
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