Judge asked to strip Interior Department of massive Indian trust fund{money was lost, stolen }

http://www.nj.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0746_BC_IndianMoney&&news& ^ | 10/19/01 | By ROBERT GEHRKE

[freedomnews]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Interior Department should be stripped of control of royalties from Indian lands because it continues to mismanage hundreds of millions of dollars, the Indians' attorneys contended Friday.

"Endless broken promises, chronic half-truths, outright lies to this court, and the fumbling paralysis" of Interior Secretary Gale Norton and other senior officials show the department cannot correct the historical mismanagement and is unfit to manage the money, wrote attorney Dennis Gingold.

[RobbyS]

Privatize it. They elect their tribal leaders. Let them deal with it themselves and stop blaming us. You don't get it. The funds will pass into the hands of these crooks, and they will squander it as they have all the funds they have got from the Federal government. The Mississippi Choctaw are the only honest and competent leadership I can think of.

[George W. Bush]

You don't get it. The funds will pass into the hands of these crooks, and they will squander it as they have all the funds they have got from the Federal government. The Mississippi Choctaw are the only honest and competent leadership I can think of.

Then it will make no difference, will it? They already squander everything? They'll squander the trust fund if they control it? Well, then, no difference and we may as well wrap up the failed BIA and fire those bureaucrats.

They're not our pets, Robby. We have to expect them to act like grownups. Their future is in their own hands. Haven't you figured out yet that it is all the government involvement which has done so much to destroy the black community? Look at the two most failed racial minorities in the country: blacks and Indians. What do they have in common? A heavy racial relationship over a long period of time with the federal government. You can say that racism is heavily against them. But in various periods other groups have been hated by the established Ameerican public. Yet, over the course of time, they succeeded in America.

No matter what, we need to treat them like responsible parties. Your basic assertion is that we will always need to run their affairs for them because they are something less than rational and responsiblte human beings.

You might even make the case that that is true. But it is certain to always be true if we continue to treat them like irresponsible children. At some point, they need to be treated as responsible adults. For their own good. For the good of the country.

[shuckmaster]

Aw, Shucks!

[YaYa123]

"Now why would you ask if DNC got money from Indian tribes", she asked, sarcastically. (Here's more history, for newcomers.)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/finance/ncfin176.htm

"Babbitt testifies on Indian casino decision
WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on Thursday denied allegations that his agency bowed to political pressure and rejected a proposed Indian gambling casino opposed by tribes that donated to the Democratic National Committee.

"The allegations that there was improper White House or DNC influence and that I was a conduit for that influence are demonstrably false," Babbitt told senators investigating campaign fund-raising abuses.

Babbitt denied he ever spoke to Harold Ickes, then the deputy White House chief of staff, or to "anyone else at the White House or at the DNC" about the issue.

The highest ranking Clinton administration official yet to testify at the Senate hearings, Babbitt said: "I did not direct my subordinates to reach any particular decision on this matter."

A lawyer for Indian tribes that claim political pressure killed their proposed gambling casino testified earlier that Babbitt told him Ickes ordered a decision without delay.

Paul Eckstein, an old Arizona friend of Babbitt, told lawmakers that he met with Babbitt on July 14, 1995, after being told by another Interior Department official that the casino planned by three Wisconsin Chippewa tribes was being disapproved.

"His response was that Harold Ickes had directed him to issue the decision that day," Eckstein told the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

I watched these hearings..Eckstein was telling the truth, there was no doubt about it.

The panel examined allegations that $286,000 eventually given to the Democratic Party by rival tribes influenced the Clinton administration's decision to reject the proposed gambling casino 20 miles from Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn. The rival tribes were trying to prevent competition to their lucrative gambling interests.

Babbit has made conflicting statements about the episode in letters to Congress about his meeting with Eckstein. The interior secretary denied making the comment about Ickes in a 1996 letter to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. This month he said he made the remark to Eckstein simply to get the lawyer out of his office.

"It is my recollection I may well have said to him Mr. Ickes expects me to make a decision," Babbitt testified Thursday. But Babbitt said the comment "was just an awkward effort to terminate an uncomfortable meeting on a personally sympathetic note."

"But as I have said here today, I had no such communication with Mr. Ickes or anyone else at the White House," Babbitt said.

Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., the panel's chairman, said the contradictions in Babbitt's statements were "just as troubling" as allegations that the Interior Department succumbed to political pressure by tribes that had hired former Democratic Party treasurer Patrick O'Connor to lobby against the plan.

Donald L. Fowler, then the Democratic Party chairman, also lobbied administration officials for tribes opposing the casino.

There is no direct evidence the White House pressured the agency. But aides to Ickes twice asked the Interior Department for a status report on the casino decision after receiving queries from O'Connor, who personally lobbied President Clinton, according to memos by presidential aides.

The memos show that the White House knew two months before the decision that the Interior Department was likely to reject the proposal. Attorney General Janet Reno confirmed Thursday that the Justice Department was conducting a 30-day review to determine if there was evidence of wrongdoing to warrant appointment of an independent counsel.

Prosecutors have already interviewed Heather Sibbison, a special assistant to Babbitt who was contacted by Ickes aides, said Stephanie Hanna, a spokesman for the Interior Department.

The White House contacts were made despite warnings from other presidential advisers that White House involvement in the issue would be "political poison," according to one aide's memo.

Eckstein, who had headed Babbitt's 1982 gubernatorial campaign in Arizona, challenged his old friend's assertion that the Ickes comment was made to get him to leave the office "because it was at the very beginning of the conversation." "I was in his office a very long time" after Ickes made the remark, Eckstein said. Eckstein also testified that Babbitt asked him if he knew Indian tribes had given $500,000 to the Democratic Party.

"It wasn't clear to me whether he was referring to Indian tribes generally, tribes with gambling contracts. But three things were clear, it involved Indians giving money to Democrats in the figure of $500,000," Eckstein said.

"I was disappointed" in the comment, Eckstein said, which came "immediately after" they had discussed a May 8 letter O'Connor had sent to Ickes to push his clients' opposition. O'Connor's letter had noted that opposing tribes had given money to Clinton's 1992 campaign.

Although Babbitt didn't directly say he had read O'Connor's letter, "he seemed to know" about it, Eckstein said. Based on Babbitt's body language, it was clear "he had familiarity with it," the witness added.

In a statement prepared for the committee, Babbitt said he "had no recollection" of making the comment about tribal political donations.

A copy of Ickes' letter has turned up in the Interior Departments files on the issue that are open for public inspection.

Ickes told the committee he never pressured Babbitt on the issue, saying, "Nobody ever tells Bruce Babbitt what to do."

(1997)By The Associated Press

________________________________________________________

(For an even more detailed accounting, read here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/counsels/babbitt.htm
The Babbitt Probe: Key Stories

[Howlin]

I knew I had not lost my mind; Babbitt and corruption just jump into my mind! I think I remember seeing something on 60 Minutes about this, too! Fowler certainly dropped off the face of the earht, didn't he? As did a lot of other "ones." Thank God.

[Twodees]

Thanks for the ping. The timeline in the earlier response to this thread skips anything that happened between '34 and '92. Southern Cheyenne council trustees approached the incoming administration in early '93 to ask for help in getting their oil royalties accounting clarified. This should be an indication that these funds have been routinely mismanaged if not outright looted since before Clinton took office.

The Southern Cheyenne revealed in '98 that all they got in the way of action was a meeting with VP Gore late in '95 in which he promised to "look into it" in return for a campaign donation. The SC ponied up $107k and in '98 demanded their money back after over two years of inaction.

[Twodees]

She won't be worse or more corrupt than Babbit? That's hardly a standard to shoot for, is it?

Norton's being named in the complaint shouldn't siganl that she might be able to straighten any of this out. She would have to make some effort, and it doesn't appear that she has.

[Twodees]

Ol' Jeff Davis was a genius to have traveled forward in time to steal money from a fund established in 1887. Thanks for your valued historical input.

[lavaroise]

I wonder where these two wonderful guys are plying their thieving ways today?

Rubin works at city group, refused chairman position but is still very influential in the dealing of the largest finacial institution in the world.

[YaYa123]

Listen girl, don't you think for a second that these Clinton goons have dropped off the face of the earth. Many of them have been placed in invisible positions, but make no mistake, positions of power....they're just out of camera range.

The Clintons took care of their friends...but they didn't do it for the sake of their friends...they did it for themselves.

Cheryl Mills is a hotshot at OXYGEN television, and other board positions.

Maggie Williams' husband is head of Interpol.

Mark Gearan is dean of a New York college.

George Stephanoupolis, Lisa Caputo (it's early and I've only had one cup of coffee, I'll think of others as the day goes on.....like sneeze germs, they're everywhere!

[Cold Heat]

Trust Fund?........................hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhahahhahahhahetc.

[pointsal]

For historical perspective, read the Babbit family history.... There is nothing new under the sun, when feeding from the public trough.

[RobbyS]

A heavy racial relationship over a long period of time with the federal government. I begin to suspect that "privatizing" is really nothing more than a jargon term that you are applying to a situation you know little about. This "relationship" has never been wanted on the part of the Indian nations, because the Federal government has always sought to keep them in a state of dependency and/or to exploit them like a corrupt guardian. Your knowledge of the matter seems not extend further than the beginning of the "Indian Rights" Movement, which did try to hitch its wagon to the star of the Civil Rights Movement, and which primarily benefits a small group that has profitted from federal largess. Are you really willing for the Feds to hand over the assets that properly belong to a large number of people to be looted by these very same people, these "red" Jacksons and Sharptons and their cohorts?

[George W. Bush]

Are you really willing for the Feds to hand over the assets that properly belong to a large number of people to be looted by these very same people, these "red" Jacksons and Sharptons and their cohorts?

Yes, I am.

So is any other conservative worthy of the label. It's theirs. Give it to them. If they screw it up, that's their problem, not ours. They elect their tribal leaders and councils. Let them deal with it.

[fred flinch]

ALL ON CLINTONS WATCH!

[Twodees]

Oh sure, son. With all the accusations flying around for 12 years after the war, there wasn't a single indictment. Davis was even set free after being held for two years in solitary when no prosecutor could be found willing to commit the malfeasance and perjury necessary to prosecute him for treason.

I guess you didn't read the 14th Amendment that your boys enacted without ratification. It was declared the law of the land by the Sec'State and it includes a prohibition of payment by any state of Confederate bond debts.

It's so easy to bat aside these idiot charges you make because they're all patently false.

[RobbyS]

It's theirs. Give it to them. The question is who is "they" and how is it to be conveyed to them once they are identified. I can see the lawyers feasting on the confusion!