Indian Trust Money #3

We left off in 1999. Clinton was still president and the tribes had given him lots of campaign contributions. Looks like he would have helped them out but…..well, usual story of broken faith. Things just continued in this vein. In 2001 the Court of Appeals ruled that the Department of the Interior’s malfeasance justified court oversight and in 2003 an audit found that Interior had committed fraud in recreating and backdating documents relating to Indian mineral royalties. By this time George Bush and the Republicans were in control. Any change in attitude? Not a chance! Same old stuff. In 2005, back in District Court, the court ruled that Interior had illegally withheld payments to Indians and the reason Interior had given for doing so was that there was ongoing litigation!

Finally in January of this year US District Court Judge Robertson ruled that things were such a mess that completion of the required accounting was impossible and a hearing to establish a remedy would be scheduled and in March of this year the plaintiffs, in a filing, asked the court to $58 billion into the Indian Trust. Both Congress and the Bush Administration fell short in their offerings, Congress offering $8 billion and the administration offering $3.5 billion. The judge then scheduled a trial at the federal courthouse in Washington DC, to establish “how much money the federal government collected from leases of millions of acres of
Indian lands and failed to promptly disburse to upwards of 500,000 native American beneficiaries.”
The judge wants to have the trial finished and an order issued to the government as to how much is owed to the plaintiffs. Maybe this time a measure of justice will come to the Native Americans involved.

Here is a link to the Department of Justice site with trial transcripts.  (http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/cases/cobell/)