Indian Trust Money #2

In 1994 Congrees passed the Indian Trust Management Reform Act of 1994. It laid the burden on the Secretary of the Interior “to account for the daily and annual balances of all funds held in trust by the United States for the benefit of an Indian tribe or an individual Indian that are deposited or invested pusuant to the Act of June 24, 1938.” Right away the Interior Department claimed that they did not have to render an accounting for anything before 1994! Of course the trust responsibility goes back to the 1880′s and even as early as 1915 a report of the Joint Commission of Congress on Indian Funds warned that there was tremendous fraud, corruption and incompetence in the Department of Interior’s management of the trust funds.

Here are some of the events in the ongoing court case during the Clinton administration:

1996 – original case filed,

1996 – The US District Court orders Interior and Treasury to produce trust-related documents for the plaintiffs,

1998 – Nearly two years after the suit was filed, the Court again orders the government to produce the relevant documents and records,

1998 – Treasury’s Financial Management Service destroys 162 boxes of documents stored in a Maryland warehouse, at the same time government lawyers are telling the Court they are looking for the records,

1998 – The court issues an order to show cause why Interior Secretary Babbitt, Treasury Secretary Rubin and Assistant Interior Secretary Gover should not be held in contempt of court for failure to produce the documents. Babbitt, Rubin and Gover are found in contempt by Judge Lamberth,

1999 – 16 weeks after the original order government lawyers notify the Court that Treasury destroyed 162 boxes of documents.

More to come! Stay tuned.