by Bill McAllister
Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief
The Denver Post
WASHINGTON – On his last day in office, Bruce Babbitt, interior secretary
during the Clinton administration, offered a Colorado publication a candid
assessment of the federal judge who had held him in contempt of court.
Now, more than two years later, Babbitt is probably wishing he’d kept those
comments to himself. He is among nearly 50 current and former Interior
Department officials who may soon have to make another appearance before
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth.
All of them, along with Gale Norton, President Bush’s interior secretary,
face new contempt charges in the long-running lawsuit over Interior’s
admitted mishandling of Indian trust accounts. But what may have harmed
Babbitt’s prospects with the judge is what he told Ed Marston of Paonia’s
High Country News when asked about the jurist.
“Well, this judge – and I now say this as a lawyer returning to private
practice – has a very controversial history around this town, and I would
invite anyone to examine his record, his statements, his treatment in the
appellate courts,” Babbitt said. “This guy is not your usual federal judge.”
Last week one of Washington’s most respected publications, The Washington
Monthly, did just what Babbitt had suggested. It examined Lamberth’s record
and came to the same conclusion as the former Cabinet secretary.
“Royce Lamberth is no ordinary judge,” editor Stephanie Mencimer wrote. Her
article, however, lavished praise on the Texas native and his style of “Lone
Star justice.”
In the process, Mencimer warned Norton to be wary of the “cowboy” judge who
recently concluded a contempt hearing against her. “Norton’s handling of the
trust-fund case suggests that, despite Lamberth’s warnings, she thought she
had nothing to fear from a fellow Republican appointed by her party’s
greatest hero, Ronald Reagan,” the article said.
“Norton, perhaps, can be excused for believing Lamberth was on her team.
After all, he is the very same judge who, for eight years, dogged the
Clinton administration with a ferocity only seen in independent prosecutor
Ken Starr.”
The issues in the early 1990s involved Hillary Rodham Clinton’s penchant for
secrecy about her ill-fated health-care task force. But overall, Mencimer
said, the theme that runs throughout Lamberth’s 15 years on the bench is a
distrust of governmental actions.
As he has shown repeatedly in the trust case, Lamberth challenges Interior’s
assertions and demands to know details that other judges might be inclined
to ignore. It comes naturally for a former federal lawyer who has spent his
entire career working for the government and knows how government lawyers
operate, the Monthly article said.
Indeed, Lamberth once worked in the civil division, which is now defending
Norton. Without Lamberth, the Monthly said, “it’s unlikely that the Interior
Department would have lifted a finger to undo its century-long screwup of
Indian trust funds.”
And if Lamberth disciplines Norton, as many in Washington expect, she
probably won’t be “the only errant Bush administration official to be
reprimanded by Lamberth,” the magazine said.
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