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Abramoff and gaming Indians: Just the tip of the iceberg [Updated]
For a couple of weeks now, I've been writing about what I've come to view as the much bigger scandal involving everyone from Jack Abramoff to Gale Norton to Richard Pombo to Grover Norquist, and generally every major Republican in between. It too has to do with Indians, but not only those with gaming operations. In fact, the real actors in this drama are the poorest of Indians, mostly in the West and Plains.
This morning, I tried to summarize the issues in a comment thread at MyDD. It was the first time since starting my research that I've tried to put the "story" down in as few words as possible. Because the fact is, unless people can actually grasp the basics of this scandal, and how it effects not just a few hundred thousand Indians, but everyone in this country, I think it will never make it past a few interested links on Technorati.
So below the jump is my best try to do just that.
* mbw's diary :: ::
*
The story of Jack Abramoff's buying of influence goes well beyond a few Congressional players. While those relationships are key to the story, they're secondary to his cosy relationship with CREA director Italia Federici, her former boss, Sec. of the Interior, Gale Norton, and Deputy Sec. Steven Griles, and this seedy gang's take-over of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). This move, however, was not just to help a few gaming tribes expand their operations - remember, Abramoff dismissed his tribal clients as morons. He was using their money to screw not only tribes in direct competition for part of the gaming pie, but, probably unwittingly, to subvert justice for nearly half the Indians in the country.
The front-burner issue in the Interior Department during this Administration has been the foot-dragging, subverting and outright sabotaging of the largest class action case in US history, Cobell v. Norton. Norton was even slapped with a contempt charge by Judge Royce Lamberth for her part in the matter. Clinton Sec. Bruce Babbitt was also charged with contempt, but the plaintiffs in Cobell assert that while Clinton's people were just incompetent and trying to drag out the clock so they could hand off the problem, Norton has been downright hostile to settling the case, willing to use extreme measures to subvert the court ordered judgment.
Why? Colorado native Norton is of the James Watt school of pillage the environment (she entered the Reagan Administration to work for him) and her entire career has been to forward the interests of oil and gas, mining and forestry industries. And in the West, that means easy access to cheap federal land leases, hundreds of millions of acres of land rich with natural resources.
A large chunk of those federal lands are Indian Trust Fund lands, taken into trust in the late 1800s via the Dawes Act, and leased out to industries, ranchers and farmers at cut-rate prices. The money was then to be managed by Interior and paid out to native landowners. Of course, that didn't happen - hence Cobell v. Norton.
The courts have ordered a full accounting of the Trust. Problem is, many of the documents were destroyed, including a slew of them under Norton. So the plaintiffs decided a few years back that the only way to get a real accounting is to audit the industries' books. That's what makes everyone so nervous, as plaintiff experts, having done some sampling, estimate we're talking over $150 billion in underpayments and fraud, along with interest, of course. Yes, $150 BILLION. And the pressure would be huge for Congress to force a repayment by the guilty. If not, then it comes out of the taxpayers' pockets, as the courts have already ordered the accounts be properly audited and brought up to date. Hence, the concern of the oil/gas, mining, ranching, forestry and agriculture interests which use/abuse the land lease process.
So Norton did what she could to subvert the case, but as the heat was turned up, and the Administration losing appeal after appeal, she started pushing for Congressional Republicans to take the case and force a settlement. A settlement for a fraction of the potential amount, but one which would prevent an audit of industry accounts. Who is the chief supporter of a Congressional settlement? None other than the puppet of the oil, gas and mining industry, Richard Pombo. Twice Pombo has written legislation ordering a settlement (both times with no settlement figures, of course), but Delay intervened. Not because he likes Indians, but because he figures that it's safer to stall than to provide even the smallest chance the industry books will be audited. (Delay and most oilmen Congressmen voted against the original Indian Trust Accountability Act back in 1994 - only 36 Reps did.) So from 2002 to 2005, Delay ordered, despite a court order, that no accounting of the trust fund occur (or at least there'd be no funding for it, which, of course, means it doesn't happen.)
This is where Abramoff comes in. He was the slush fund operator. Indians thought they were paying Pombo and others on House Resources and Senate Indian Affairs, et al., for help with gaming issues, and Abramoff was in fact padding coffers necessary to protect the industry from auditing.
Think this is all too far-fetched? Just last week, the NYTimes posted an article on three months' of research into federal land leases (including Indian trust lands) and found rampant fraud and underpayment. In addition, numerous whistleblowers were fired, including Norton and Griles trustee for the BIA, who refused to testify before Congress that the Trust was fine. Accountants and fund managers were fired for doing a good job and finding fraud.
McCain and Pombo are once again pushing for a settlement, and in the increasingly hostile environment for Indians due to success in portraying Abramoff's tribal clients as villains, not victims, they'll most likely get it, at rock-bottom prices. And the industry books will remain safely closed.
That's it in a nutshell. There are a lot of details I left off (Griles' oil/gas/mining lobbying history, the industry's financial support for CREA, which Abramoff used to launder tribal money for anti-environmental causes, the Western Shoshone case, now in front of the UN, payments to key House Resources members just prior to Trust votes, Pombo's bill to sell off the West, etc.) But as I said, if one doesn't understand the underlying motivation, that these industries, which give millions, overwhelmingly to Republicans, are potentially liable for over a hundred billion in fraudulent underpayments, then Abramoff is nothing more than a guy who wanted to pocket some money from stupid Indians, not the slush fund manager in a much bigger game.
Most of the background and links can be found in articles over at Wampum.
[Update:] In case you weren't convinced this isn't a hot button issue for the Bushies, this story just came up on Indianz.com:
Bush punishes BIA budget to pay for Cobell
Thursday, February 2, 2006
The Bush administration has made an across-the-board cut to the Bureau of Indian Affairs budget, blaming the reduction on the Cobell trust fund lawsuit.
In an unprecedented letter to tribal leaders, associate Interior deputy secretary Jim Cason announced a $3 million cut to the BIA budget. He said the administration failed to plan for attorney's fees awarded as part of the Cobell case even though the request for fees was pending for more than a year.
As a result, Cason said the BIA forked over $2 million from an account used to "reimburse tribal attorney's fees" and an additional $1 million came from an across-the-board rescission of tribal programs.
This will be more fodder for Congress to "fix Interior's mess and save the Indians", all the while saving their corporate bankrollers.
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