Talks not fruitful in Indian trust case
by Bill McAllister
Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief
Denver Post
Sunday, December 22, 2002 – WASHINGTON – The Bush White House has been quietly pressing Interior Secretary Gale Norton to settle the Indian trust lawsuit for more than a year, according to a newly disclosed letter.
In the June 19, 2001, letter to Norton, Mitch Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget, praised the secretary for “steady progress in implementing trust improvements and completing nearly 80 percent of the milestones” outlined in the department’s strategic plan.
But Daniels went on to describe the administration’s three major objectives in resolving the 6-year-old lawsuit filed by Montana banker Elouise Cobell and four other Indians over the government’s inability to reconcile the trust accounts it holds for more than 300,000 American Indians.
The OMB chief said Interior should:
“Correct the court-declared breaches of trust responsibilities.”
“Pursue settlement negotiations to avoid the additional costs of a second trial in the Cobell litigation.”
“Propose settlement legislation that is fair to both the Indian account holders and the taxpayers.”
The letter was disclosed by the government recently as part of the discovery process in the lawsuit. It was “the start of a conversation” in which the White House outlined its goals for the year as part of the budget process.
In this case, settlement talks never have produced any fruit.
Interior officials say the Cobell lawyers are demanding too much money from the government. And the Cobell lawyers say the government is unwilling to admit the magnitude of its mistakes in handling the trust accounts.
Still, the letter from Daniels, who is a key White House player, shows that the Bush administration has been eager to get the lawsuit out of court and away from U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. The judge has repeatedly hammered both the secretary and her department over the accounts.
Current Interior strategy appears to be directed at continuing the costly process of attempting to balance the accounts. That will be a relatively slow task, but the top officials at Interior say they are convinced that the department has been a far better steward of the trust funds than it has been able to prove in court.
Their assumption is that if they can show enough account balances are accurate – or even close to accurate – then the pressure will be on Cobell’s lawyers to settle.
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