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Norton misled court on trust fund, attorney says

December 11, 2001

By Robert Gehrke
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — A lawyer for American Indians accused Interior Secretary Gale Norton on Monday of misleading a federal judge about efforts to fix a century of mismanaged Indian trust funds.

The charge from attorney Dennis Gingold came as U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth opened contempt hearings for Norton and Neal McCaleb, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for Indian affairs.

Government attorney Mark Nagle said he’s confident the hearings "will show these contempt charges are not warranted."

Lamberth must decide whether Norton and McCaleb misled the court about the security of the Indian trust fund which handles $500 million each year, concealed repeated failures of a $40 million trust-fund accounting system, and deceived the court about efforts to piece together how much Indian money was lost due to government mismanagement.

"They have abused this court, they have abused the integrity of the judicial process and they have abused the trust," Gingold said. "The fraud is clear. ... This has got to stop."

If held in contempt, Norton would be the third Cabinet secretary in less than three years that Lamberth has hit with sanctions in the Indian money case.

In 1999, Lamberth held former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in contempt and fined them $600,000 for failing to turn over documents in the 5-year-old lawsuit.

The suit stems from a century of mismanaged mining, grazing and timber royalties from 54 million acres of Indian land held in trust by the Interior Department.

Money intended for Indian beneficiaries was lost, misappropriated, stolen or never collected. The Indians’ attorneys claim the government owes 300,000 Indians more than $10 billion.

Norton’s attorneys have compiled an extensive list of objections to a series of scathing reports by two court-appointed watchdogs which were the basis for the contempt proceeding.

Norton is expected to testify during the hearing, but it’s unclear when that might happen.

She was not in court Monday, as McCaleb and Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles represented the department.

The hearing could last several weeks.

"It’s so important to have this contempt trial because the government has to start telling the truth. The court and the Indians deserve the truth," said Elouise Cobell, a member of Montana’s Blackfeet tribe, which initiated the lawsuit.