Wampum

Steven Maviglio at the CMR is reporting (or posting or whatever) that Doolittle will announce that he will not seek re-election.

I'm wicked amused that Ted Gaines is messaging that environmentalists are to blame for last summer's Tahoe fires. Remember, its a 10+ red district, and even though Gaines' argument is wrong, it is likely to stick unless Charlie Brown knows his way around fine fuels and load and selective cut and bug kill and all the rest of the forestry management loopholes the corporate-to-peckerwood loggers have written into the Bush-era Dept. of Ag's Forestry management plans.

CA-04 enters the Doolittle Death Watch, July 24, 2007

CA-04 heats up in another dimension, June 28, 2007

Posted by EBW at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'll have more to say later, but I just caught this on Google News:

Abramoff Figure Spared Prison

By MATT APUZZO - 8 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican environmental activist who arranged lobbyist Jack Abramoff's entree into the Interior Department was sentenced Friday to two months in a halfway house and four years probation.

Italia Federici, who pleaded guilty in June to tax evasion and obstructing a Senate investigation, was spared prison only because she has become a key witness in the Justice Department's ongoing corruption investigation.

Federici has admitted acting as a link between Abramoff and J. Steven Griles, the former deputy Interior Department secretary who for five years was her boyfriend. Griles provided Abramoff with advice and internal agency information, sometimes directly and sometimes through Federici.

Federici was way more involved than this sentence indicates, so she better have some serious goods on a big fish. Norton, Sansonetti, Barbour? I'll have to think about this one.

Posted by MB Williams at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm reading through Kevin Gambrell's testimony in the Cobell trial, and it's really fascinating. I've argued for years that the lessees are terrified that Congress and/or the Courts will turn to them in order to determine how much money should have ended up in Trust coffers, as it will show they underpaid their leases for years, just as they did on federal non-Indian land. But Gambrell offers up a third way to help in the accounting, which could be particularly helpful in those cases where the original documents just happened to be destroyed by the US Government. From the transcript: (Q's are Cobell attorneys, A's are from Gambrell.)

Q. When you discussed, in response to the judge's question, how the unitization works, was allocation an important issue?

A. Allocation is extremely critical in unit allocation. It is the essence of getting payment correctly to individual Indian owners, tribes, states, federal programs, and private landowners. Without it, you cannot allocate monies properly.

Q. Could you explain how the allocation process works?

A. Allocation process goes all the way back to the lease instrument. In order to get money correctly to an individual, you have to understand every aspect of the lease instrument in terms of: Is it unitized, does it commingle, what is the size of the property, what type of production comes off that property; to, when it goes through the system, is it a correct royalty rate, is it going to the correct owners, is there probate backing up those owners? And when you do that, you have to look at source documents, and you have to do third party verification.

Q. What do you mean, first of all, by source documents?

A. Well, for example, if you look at an allocation to an individual Indian, in order to get to that allocation, I have to go all the way back to the unit agreement. And I have to look at an exhibit called Exhibit B within the unit agreement, that talks about the complete breakdown of every ownership type within that unit, because I may have 30 percent owned by federal, 20 percent by Navajo Tribal, 30 percent by Navajo allotted, and maybe 20 percent by private landowner. I have to go all the way back to that document as a primary source to get to the payment to the individual Indian. And then I have to go to the royalty rate, and then I have to go to the probates and look at probates, gift deeds, living wills, et cetera, in order to get to the complete payment out to the allottee.

1 Q. That sounds like a cumbersome process. Is it?

A. It's very complex. If you were to look at this type of system in a private landowner's case, oil and gas industry hires land people, they pay them very well, in the $200,000 range, to go back and do this title research to find out who gets paid, how much they get paid, how do you allocate, et cetera. It also requires, in the private sector, a legal
opinion from an attorney that's certified, that says that the title in the allocations are certified correct, and the division of interest will pay out correctly. It requires an extensive amount of work. It requires very high level land people and attorneys to do this type of work.

Q. Is that what you did at the FIMO office when you were running the FIMO office?

A. Repeat that.

Q. Is that what you did at the FIMO office when you were running the FIMO office?

A. Yes, that was part of what I did, and my staff did.

Q. Do you have any knowledge as to whether or not this was done by MMS or anyone else outside of the FIMO office with regard to individual Indian mineral or oil and gas lands?

A. No, I'm not. We were in a unique position. We had every agency within our office, so we looked at everything from the lease agreement itself, the BLM-approved communitization

A. We brought it to the attention of MMS many times, and asked that MMS make corrections on the reports, in which case often they did.

Q. If you didn't rely on the MMS database, what did you rely on?

A. We relied on our own internal databases that we developed with companies, and we relied on companies' reports directly going to us.

Q. So is it correct, then, that you relied on third party information?

A. We relied on third party and primary source data.

Q. Are third party documents important to determining accuracy with regard to mineral and oil and gas leases?

A. Absolutely.

THE COURT: Would you call that a leading question?

MR. GINGOLD: I apologize, Your Honor.

BY MR. GINGOLD:

Q. Why would you need to rely on third party data?

A. We rely on third party databases because we don't always trust what an operator tells us. We have companies that produce oil. They tell us one thing on their inventory and what they sold; and then we go to a transporter, and we find that the information is different, that they picked up more oil than the4 company reported. And so we do rely on run tickets from trucking transportation companies, and gas pipeline companies that transport gas, to verify production.

Q. What is a run ticket?

A. Run ticket?

Q. Yeah, what is it?

MR. KIRSCHMAN: Your Honor, objection. Outside the scope of this case. This is asset management. This is talking about what private companies do. This is not about a historical accounting.

THE COURT: Well --

MR. GINGOLD: Your Honor, may I?

THE COURT: No, we touched on this yesterday. I don't want to overdo this. I mean, you're right that this is, going forward, an asset management more than it is historical accounting, but frankly, it helps for me to kind of fill in the picture of what is known and what is not known, and what can be verified and what can't be verified. So a reasonable amount of this, I'm going to allow. Go ahead.

MR. KIRSCHMAN: Thank you, Your Honor.

BY MR. GINGOLD:
Q. What is a run ticket, Mr. Gambrell?

A. A run ticket is a statement that is often signed by a transporter and an operator when oil leaves a tank. What they do is, they measure the oil in the tank when it's full, and then it fills up the truck, and then they measure the tank when the truck is filled. And between the full measurement before the truck filled up and the truck measurement after the truck fills up is the quantity of oil that leaves the lease.

Q. And how is that related to the income produced from oil and gas or mineral leases?

A. Anything to do with income depends on the volumes that are sold off the lease. You cannot determine the monies going to individual Indians if you do not know what was sold.

Posted by MB Williams at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The plaintiffs (Indians) pulled out their big guns yesterday Tuesday, and the testimony was stunning. Indianz.com (the only media resource I know of which is truly covering this landmark trial), has the story. First up was DoI field solicitor Robert McCarthy:

An Interior Department attorney who has been locked out of his office at the Bureau of Indian Affairs accused the agency on Tuesday of failing to account for millions of dollars in trust funds.

After a stint in Oklahoma, field solicitor Robert McCarthy went to work for the BIA in Palm Springs, California, over three years ago. He said he quickly learned that the agency didn't have a way to track more than $30 million in annual lease payments owed to members of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.

"The agency had a very poor system of record-keeping and was grossly mismanaging the leases ... and was generally not enforcing the leases," testified McCarthy, one of the witnesses for the plaintiffs in the Cobell trust fund lawsuit.

Enforcement was so lax that it was impossible to tell whether Agua Caliente landowners received the right amount of money for the use of their land and whether they received it on time, McCarthy said. The BIA essentially relied on the word of developers, private parties and outsiders.

"I saw files that were years in default," McCarthy said of leases that weren't enforced.

Even when a payment was made, the BIA didn't always pass it on to the beneficiary, McCarthy testified. In one case, the BIA kept a trust payment of $130,000 in a "special deposit account" for over 25 years because the agency didn't know whose money it was.

...

Despite the apparent mismanagement, the BIA made money off of Agua Caliente landowners. "In virtually every case for virtually every type of administrative action," the agency charged a fee for its services, McCarthy said.

For example, a fee of 1 percent was applied to every single land sale, McCarthy said. In Palm Springs -- where real estate is big business -- this amounted to payments to the BIA that were as high as $60,000, according to one document entered into evidence.

But federal regulations limit fees for land sales to $22.50, McCarthy said. The regulations also cap fees for leases at $500, though that apparently wasn't followed in Palm Springs.

"Those fees are charged in Palm Springs on every lease," McCarthy told the court.

...

The situation prompted McCarthy to warn his superiors in the Solicitor's Office, the Inspector General and eventually Jim Cason -- the associate deputy secretary at DOI who was in charge of the BIA at the time -- about the problems in Palm Springs. "I was kicked out of my office after I made my disclosures," McCarthy told Judge James Robertson, who wondered why the solicitor was working from home -- with pay -- rather than at the BIA office.

"Everyone stopped talking to me," McCarthy added. "I was shunned."

And when McCarthy informed his superiors that he was going to testify in the Cobell trial, he was told he was going to be fired for allegedly disclosing confidential trust data to the media. The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility group is defending McCarthy, who has filed appeals over his employment status.

...

After his direct testimony, McCarthy was treated in a hostile manner by Robert Kirschman, a DOJ attorney. Kirschman attempted to show that McCarthy tried to take sole credit for identifying the proper owner of the $130,000 trust payment, mischaracterized the way in which Agua Caliente leases are tracked and gave inaccurate information in the memo to Cason.

McCarthy appeared to withstand the scrutiny and Kirschman cut off his cross-examination after seeming to stumble on a question about fees. Kirschman also tried to make an issue out of a memo that he said McCarthy failed to provide to the court.

Next up for the Cobell plaintiffs was Albuquerque Bureau of Indian Affairs employee Mona Infield, whose responsibilities cover data recovery efforts:

Infield, a member of the Citizen Potawataomi Nation of Oklahoma, gave succinct but detailed testimony about trust accounting practices dating back to the 1980s. She spoke of outdated systems, missing computer records and a lack of enforcement.

"They were relying on an honor system to pay the royalties," she said of government agencies.

Infield concluded her testimony yesterday afternoon after DOJ attorneys declined to ask questions.

Up today is Kevin Gambrell, the former director of the Federal Indian Minerals Office in Farmington, New Mexico from 1996 to 2003. Gambrell testified before Congress regarding mismanagement of trust accounts, and was fired from his job for purportedly "destroying records." Gambrell maintains the documents were merely copies of originals properly recorded and stored by MMS.

PBS' Now recorded an interview with Gambrell in 2006. For a preview of what Gambrell might have to say today, read the transcript.

Correction: Gannett has also been following the story. In fact, Solicitor McCarthy faces dismissal for disclosing the extent of the mismanagement to Gannett earlier this year.

Update: I misread the original article in Indianz, and thus was a day off in my reporting. McCarthy and Infield testified on Tuesday, and Gambrell yesterday. I'm currently reading through the transcript.

In addition, Indianz.com is reporting both parties have rested their cases and have until Dec. 30th for closing arguments.

Posted by MB Williams at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

John Doolittle, nine-term incumbent and Abramoff prosecution target raised $50,000 in 3Q07, his primary opponent Maj. Eric Egland (R-Freeper), doing his first run at doors, raised $80,000, and Charlie Brown got a very respectable $212,000 for his second run at the 04 doors.

Remember, its a 10+ red district.

Posted by EBW at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What are the odds that one dollar in five contributed to the Florida Republican Party during the past quarter came from the Palm Beach Kennel Club, Mardi Gras Gaming, and the Jacksonville and Hollywood dog tracks?

Marco Rubio, Republican from West Miami, and Speaker of the the Florida House, is leading the Republican House Caucus on the issue of gaming in Florida. Indian gaming in Florida. He's wicked opposed to it.

Now recalculate your odds. Did they change?

Posted by EBW at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Top of the e-fold at Indianz.com:

Interior attorney to testify at upcoming Cobell trial
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Filed Under: Cobell

Robert McCarthy, a field solicitor for the Interior Department, will testify at the upcoming Cobell historical accounting trial.

McCarthy is listed as a witness for the Cobell plaintiffs. He is expected to provide information about the mismanagement of Indian trust accounts in southern California.

The department is trying to fire McCarthy, saying he allegedly released confidential trust data to the media. A final decision is being made by Solicitor David Bernhardt.

The Cobell trial will focus on the historical accounting of the trust. It starts October 10 at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C.

I assume that Bernhardt is arguing that if McCarthy had issues with trust management, he should have gone to the Department of Justice and not the media. Anyone else find that suggestion downright laughable?

Posted by MB Williams at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Indianz.com has the full report, and I'll only pull out some of the juicier tidbits for now (not wanting to steal their thunder and all):

Court: Navajo Nation owed money for bungled lease
Friday, September 14, 2007
Filed Under: Law | Trust

The Interior Department breached its trust to the Navajo Nation and must pay damages for mishandling a coal mining lease, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.

In a unanimous decision, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals said the "undisputed facts" prove Interior breached its fiduciary duties to the largest tribe in the country. Swayed by a lobbyist, the Reagan administration approved a coal mining lease for a less than a "reasonable" royalty rate, the three-judge panel concluded.

...

"Accordingly, this court holds that the nation has a cognizable money-mandating claim against the United States for the alleged breaches of trust and that the government breached its trust duties," Judge Arthur J. Gajarsa, a Reagan nominee, wrote in the 39-page ruling.

Barring further appeals, the Court of Federal Claims will now determine the damages the government must pay for mishandling the lease. The tribe claims it lost out on at least $600 million in royalties for one of the most valuable coal deposits in the U.S.

The case is very complicated, and has already gone through a litany of decisions, some of which were very unfavorable to the Navajo; thus it will most likely be appealed to the SCOTUS. However, any victory for Indians in US courts is good, and this is a big one.

More from Indianz.com:

The Federal Circuit also said the government violated its "common law trust duties of care, candor, and loyalty" by approving a lease with a royalty rate that was more favorable to Peabody Coal than to the Navajo Nation. Peabody is the world's largest coal company and has been mining the reservation for decades.

When the Bureau of Indian Affairs recommended the tribe receive a 20 percent royalty rate on its coal, Peabody hired a lobbyist who was a "a former aide and friend" to then-Interior Secretary Don Hodel, the court said. After a meeting that was kept secret from the tribe, Hodel told the BIA to stand down from the higher rate and to urge the tribe to negotiate with Peabody.

"Facing severe economic pressure," the court said, the tribe was forced to agree to a lease with a 12.5 percent royalty rate. The difference cost the tribe at least $600 million in royalties, according to the lawsuit.

Although the actions at issue took place more than 20 years ago, they remain fresh in the minds of many Navajo leaders, who feel betrayed by their trustee. Their feelings worsened when Hodel's previously unknown dealings with the lobbyist came to light through the course of the lawsuit.

It's important to note, as I have time and time again, that many of the characters who ran the Reagan Interior Department, including specific departments which cover royalties and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, returned to Washington to work for the currently Bush Administration. Among them, Gale Norton, Tom Sansonetti, and J. Steven Griles, who, according to Indianz.com, was directly involved in the royalty fiasco (guess Abramoff wasn't the first lobbyist who had undue influence over Griles.) The former three have now left the Administration, but there are others who were involved who still hold positions of immense power at Interior, including direct oversight of the Trust responsibility.

The second official was Ross Swimmer, who currently serves as Special Trustee for American Indians and is responsible for ensuring the government meets its trust obligations. He approved the lease with the lower royalty rate without studying the effect it would have on the tribe.

Swimmer was also deposed for the case but failed to recall doing so when asked about it during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and during a federal court trial for the Cobell trust fund case. He also told Native reporter Jodi Rave that he couldn't remember whether he was deposed.

This ruling comes less than a month before the grandmother of all Indian Trust cases, Cobell v. Kempthorne, goes back to trial. It is not the precedent the Bush Administration wanted, of that, I'm quite sure.

Posted by MB Williams at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the Hill (via Indianz.com)

Former Sen. Campbell pays law firm $20,000
By Mike Soraghan
July 24, 2007

Former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.) paid his law firm more than $20,000 after his ex-chief of staff Ginnie Kontnik pleaded guilty in connection with a kickback investigation.

According to campaign finance records, Campbell paid $21,257 on May 11 to Patton Boggs, the firm he retained after the Department of Justice began investigating allegations that Kontnik overpaid a Campbell staffer and demanded $2,000 back for herself.

Campbell's payment came out of unspent campaign funds. He'd already paid more than $150,000 to the firm.

Indianz added a line not in the original article: "Campbell retired in March 2004."

For those who need a bit of reminding of the events of late winter, 2004, at the time, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) was the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. During the last week of February, the Washington Post did its big expose on Jack Abramoff and his tribal clients. Abramoff was a long-term foe of John McCain, viewed by many as having been, with friend Grover Norquist, behind the dirty anti-McCain campaign in the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary. McCain is nothing if not a man of vengance: On Thursday, February 26, Senator John McCain, member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee (but not, yet, the Chairman), announced that he would hold hearings on Abramoff and his cronies. That evening, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, checked himself into a Washington hospital with chest pains. Turned out to be heartburn. But it didn't stop him from deciding, only a month after his splashy kickoff to his re-election campaign, to retire from the Senate due to "health concerns." It also didn't stop Campbell from picking up a very lucrative gig with the big lobbying firm, Holland and Knight.

Campbell's connections to indicted and soon-to-be sentenced CREA executive director Italia Federici are very clear, though seldom discussed. Campbell was on the board of her other GOP project in Colorado, promoting private funding of the Arts. I've always suspected his was one of the two names redacted as attendees for a party for Gale Norton in an email between Federici and Abramoff in March, 2001, a party Abramoff also attended.

Campbell still may need his high paid Patton Boggs attorneys, so he better make sure his balance is current.

Posted by MB Williams at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A few weeks ago, when the Agura fire put South Lake Tahoe at risk, I mentioned to MB that Charlie Brown's CM should be prepared for a snap election, not just a leasurely stroll up to an uncontested 06/08 primary and a run against an electoral corpse in 11/08, in a 10+ margin red district.

Mike Holmes just announced an exploratory committee for another run. He lost a primary challenge against John Doolittle in the last cycle by a 1 to 2 margin. He positioned himself as the "ethically sound Republican" in yesterday's presser in Sacramento.

Eric Egland hasn't announced, but he'd be an idiot to pass up the chance that there will be a snap election and Doolittle's name won't be on the primary ballot. He's not a "political newcomer", but he is a talking head who hasn't (yet) done doors.

The day Doolittle is indicted, Charlie Brown will need CA-04 money, CDP money, netroots money, DTRIP money, Indian money, Democratic primary national campaign(s) monies, and DNC money, because (a) its 10+ red, and (b) it will fall before the rest of the calendar, and (c) if Maj. Egland (R-Freeper) beats the councilman from a town of 12,500 that lives on Gold Rush ephemera and the last Denny's before chains-manditory on I-80 in the Republican primary, it will be a referendum on the Iraq War, and (d) if not (c), then it will be a referendum on "clean" Republicans vs " clean" Democrats,

With Bush polling at 25%, losing a race that only has a 10+ red margin, for whatever reason, before the '08 cycle's general calendar, would really sting. It would be like losing the Hackett race again.

Posted by EBW at 10:49 PM | Permalink

via the Native American Times

As my car left the red clay hills which make up the Mississippi Choctaw reservation this past Saturday, a collective sigh of aiali (justice) and relief overtook me. It was the same feeling that was plainly visible in the expressions of many of the Mississippi Choctaw people who I had spent the last two days with. The reign of Phillip Martin and his administration composed of numerous non-Indians had ended. In its place was change and renewal. A break from the lobbyists in Washington D.C. was talked about. More jobs for Choctaw community members were expected.

To understand the effect one individual could play on the larger Choctaw Nation, most people have only to think about where the Choctaw Nation extends. The majority one talks with may remark about the Choctaw Nation being located solely in Oklahoma, while some others offer up Oklahoma and Mississippi. Very few talk of the communities outside of these areas. Of course, the communities outside of these areas don't currently own and operate gaming facilities, the seeming prerequisite for publicity these days in Indian Country.

So the question becomes who is the Choctaw Nation? The Choctaw Nation is comprised of those descendants of the Choctaw people who were dispersed following the signing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830 and some previous migrations. These current communities cover 6 states and are comprised of eleven bands with varying degrees of interconnectedness.

The MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians are located in southwestern Alabama near the Mississippi state line. This reservation based community of approximately 3,600 tribal citizens has remained on lands held by their ancestors since the Choctaw treaties extending from 1803 to 1830. The main reservation lands are surrounded by ten smaller communities which compromise the homes of 93% of the tribal population. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians are located in 8 communities and one additional uninhabited community (Ocean Springs) spread out across the state of Mississippi. These communities including Bok Chito, Standing Pine, Conehetta, Crystal Ridge, Bok Homa, Red Water, Pearl River and Tucker are home to over 9,000 Mississippi Choctaw Citizens. The West Tennessee Choctaw live on 172 acres of reservation land in Eastern Tennessee and are enrolled citizens of the Mississippi Choctaw. This community formed in the middle part of last century as Choctaw families moved to the area in search of employment. The Bayou Lacombe Choctaw are located not far from the Mississippi State line near Lacombe, Louisiana. This particular group was heavily studied by anthropologist David Bushnell in 1910 and again by other academics in 1953. A group of approximately 100-300 tightly knit descendants of these Choctaws studied still remains in the marginal and previously isolated lands of this Southeastern Louisiana community. South of this community lies a Choctaw related community which was devastated by the recent Hurricanes. The United Houma Nation with a population of 17,000, has continued their lives in the southern bayous of Louisiana for many generations. To the northwest, the town of Clifton, Louisiana is home to approximately 500 Choctaw Indians who are known for their basket making skills. A little further north, the Jena Band of Choctaw Indiansmake their home near Trout, Louisiana. Their population stands at around 250. On the far western side of Louisiana, near the town of Zwolle, is the Choctaw-Apache of Ebarb community. These people of mixed Choctaw, Apache and Spanish descent number nearly 2,000. Occupying 10 counties in the Southeastern Oklahoma, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma with a population approaching 200,000 is by far the largest contingent of Choctaw in the United States. Within their midst are also communities of Choctaw Freedmen who stood side by side with one another throughout the tribe's history. In California, due to relocation programs aimed at Choctaws in Oklahoma, the Okla Chahta Clan of California was formed to bring together these families which number over 20,000 individuals. Other related communities to the Choctaw include the Coushatta of Louisiana, Alabama-Coushatta of Texas and Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma.

As one can see, the Choctaw Nation, is much more diverse than what many imagine. And this diversity has caused decades of cultural sharing as well as infighting. Battles over issues of blood quantum, federal recognition, cultural & language retention, historical alliances and of course gaming, have caused lines of division not unlike those faced by communities across Indian Country. The architect of many of these divisions, Mississippi Choctaw Chief Phillip Martin watched his meteoric rise and pronouncement as an economic powerhouse crumble in recent days due to his close association with non-Indian lobbyists, politicians and anthropologists who reeked havoc on neighboring Choctaw communities by overturning federal recognition petitions and postponing land in to trust applications.

So last Friday, on the day he conceded victory to his challenger Beasley Denson, we watched the opening rounds of the annual stickball tournament across the street from the tribal complex and office where he led his tribe for 7 terms. While standing there, numerous community members approached me with outstretched hands and words of greetings and thanks in our Choctaw language. Many people in the Mississippi Choctaw & MOWA Choctaw communities, as well as numerous Indian people from various tribes across the nation, had spent a great deal of time over the past few years, advocating for the rights of the Mississippi Choctaw people and exposing the fraud committed against the MOWA Choctaw community 120 miles to the southeast who were thought to be possible competition in the gaming industry. For years, the same tactics were played against the now federally recognized Jena Band of Choctaw Indians in Louisiana. Twelve years after their federal recognition, they are just now being able to take land into trust for the purposes of economically and socially growing their community.

While Jack Abramoff, J. Steven Griles and a host of others associated with Chief Phillip Martin's administration are now serving jail terms or awaiting trial, Mr. Martin has been able to use the tribe's federal immunities to ward off investigations into his role in the matter. Of course, little of this matters now as power has been rested from his hands.

And so the stickball games ended and we headed back to our hotel room for the night in preparation for day two of the Choctaw Spirit Language & Culture Seminar, which we had been invited to speak at. The theme of the conference discussed the unification of Choctaw people. As I sat down with one of the Mississippi Choctaw's current council members and we discussed a new future for our two communities, the theme seemed only too fitting.

You see, sometimes the unification power of one man's leadership is only found ... through his absence. Chata hapia hoke.

Cedric Sunray serves as Advisor to the Chief of the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians

We've no regrets at having worked hard to replace Chad Smith and his allies in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma election last month.

Posted by EBW at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The SacBee has the coverage on Doolittle's July 7th position on the Iraq War here, but for some reason fails to mention Doolittle's prior positions on the subject -- when he used the fullest measure of the "cut and run" rhetorical device. It also fails to capture the core of his "new" position -- he now measures the future of the Iraq War in some plastic unit of "months", so he's finally acquired some rudimentary concepts and may develop actual numeracy -- on par with my four year old's notion of when Christmas and birthdays are, and how long from "now" till "then".

The SacBee styles him joining Lugar and Dominici, when they should be stying him, like Dominici, as a failing incumbent looking for distance from what drives his negatives, and the next most likely to join the Congressional Indicted Caucus.

Posted by EBW at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Reform challenger Beasley Denson out-polled seven-term incumbent Phillip Martin by 211 votes. The results will be certified Friday. Earlier coverage is here and here.

This leaves only Chad Smith, the incumbent executive of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, as the last remaining of an original six Jack Abramoff client/contributor tribal executives who still control Indian Gaming operations and rubber stamp legislatures.

Compare the reported process and transparency of the Mississippi Choctaw absentee ballot (below) with the slight-of-hand announcement that Chad Smith got an overwhelming inland absentee vote, and the news that some inland (Vian) Cherokee Freedmen voters who did not request absentee ballots were sent ballots late, and were turned away at the polls when they attempted to vote.

More than 100 people packed into the Tribal Council Hall as committee members convened to count the absentee ballots and recount the results from Tuesday's poll voting.

The process was slow, as ballots and affidavits were sorted, reviewed, checked for matching signatures and counted.

"We don't want any injustice. Beasley took it fair and square and that's what we're here to see," Denson supporter Nolan Mitch, 33, said as the crowd gathered.

The crowd applauded when Denson walked into the standing-room-only tribal hall.

Denson, 57, quit his job as a car salesman to take on what is likely the most intense political fight the reservation has ever seen.

Denson supporters wanted to ensure that all absentee ballots came with a request letter, indicating the voter had requested a ballot for Tuesday's runoff.

But when the counting began, a dispute broke out over whether committee chairwoman Nellie Steve should have sent absentee ballots to voters who requested them for the June 12 election but not for Tuesday's runoff.

It is worth noting that neither Congresswoman Diane Watson nor the National Congress of American Indians gave active support to Phillip Martin in the Mississippi Choctaw election last month, or this week's run-off.

Posted by EBW at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been spending much of my time buried in Administration calendars, court documents, travel schedules and lobbyist disclosures, so clearly haven't been posting much. However, I've found something that I think needs to go up right away, as the more eyes researching it, and, hopefully, bloggers flogging it, the better.

It might be easiest if you follow the path I took. I started on the Senate Lobbyist Dislosure site, looking for any clients with "Klamath" in the names. I found a few, but the one which stood out was the "Klamath Water Users Association". When I opened their disclosure forms, I found they had hired Washington Strategies on December 19, 2002, and listed Jennifer Johnson Calvert, Troy Tidwell and William Jarrell as registered lobbyists, to ostensibly work on "federal appropriations, water and natural resources."

I wasn't familiar with Troy Tidwell , but a quick Google indicated he was, as late as 2001, the senior legislative aide for Congressman Greg Walden (R-OR, Klamath Basin.)

Jennifer Calvert and William (Bill) Jarrell were familiar characters, however, having been part of "Team Abramoff" when Jack was honing his uber-lobbyist skills at Preston Gates. Even before Jack jumped ship and took much of his team and client base to Greenberg Traurig, Calvert and Jarrell bolted in December, 2000, to form Washington Strategies. Ms. Calvert's husband, Chad Calvert, had been selected as a member of the Bush-Cheney "Transition Team", probably due in part to his Wyoming roots (as mentioned previously, the team responsible for staffing Interior was headed by former Interior Solicitor, Tom Sansonetti.) Clearly, Jennifer Calvert and Bill Jarrell, a mover and shaker in his own right, as the former deputy chief of staff for Tom Delay, felt that they could gain the access to governmental officials that their clients would demand, without being in Jack's massive shadow.

Seeing that Sue Ellen Wooldridge was recently outted as Dick Cheney's mole in the Interior Department on Klamath Basin water issues, I was curious as to the relationship between the Calverts and Wooldridge. After his position on the Transition Team, Chad Calvert was named deputy director of the Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs in January 2001. According to a later press release, Calvert

[A]ssisted the Secretary of the Interior and the director of Congressional Affairs in liaison activities with congressional committees and members of Congress. He coordinated departmental legislative policy with the assistant secretary for land and minerals management and the assistant secretary for Indian affairs, with their bureau directors and with the Office of Management and Budget.

Since CREW did not obtain Chad Calvert's calendar in their 2005/6 FIOA request, it's been difficult to ascertain just how involved he was on the Klamath Basin issue. However, I did notice that Sue Ellen Wooldridge had a social relationship with the Calverts: On Dec. 13th, 2002, her calendar indicated "Calvert Party". Remember, of course, that on Dec. 19th the Klamath Water Users Association hired Jennifer Calvert as their lobbyist. So did the Klamath County Economic Development Association, each forking over $40,000 per year for Washington Strategies lobbying efforts.

One thing that intrigued me on both Jennifer Calvert (now Jennifer Calvert Jarrell) and Bill Jarrell's biographies at the Washington Strategies website, was that both were founders and Board Members of Western Watch, "a national public policy organization dedicated to preserving and improving the quality of life for Western and rural Americans." Having spent so much time ferretting out the truth behind Italia Federici's Council for Republican Environmental Advocates and Abramoff's many charity front organizations, the idea of lobbyists "founding" non-profit organizations out of the kindness of their hearts leaves me less than convinced. And, in the case of the Western Watch Foundation, with good reason.

According to WWF's only filed Form 990 from Guidestar (2002), the organization raised $49,600, and spent $45,234 mostly on "conferences, conventions and meetings." They had no website, no offices separate from those of Washington Strategies, no mention of participation in any conference, convention and/or meeting; with the exception of the travel disclosure forms of three Republican members of Congress.

On June 28-30, 2002, Representatives Christopher Cannon (R-UT), Butch Otter (R-ID) and Wally Herger (R-CA) received paid travel, lodging and food to and in Las Vegas, Nevada, totaling $2,684, $2,603, and $2,518 respectively. The justifications ranged from "public lands conference" (Cannon), to "policy sessions on Education, Environment Western Issues" (Otter) to "Western Watch Foundation Policy Forum" (Herger.) On 9/23/2003, Herger again accepted paid travel, meals and lodging totalling $946 from the Western Watch Foundation, this time to Denver for a "Partnership for the West grassroots action summit" sponsored by WWF. Wally Herger's district (CA-2) is one of four which lie within the Klamath water basin, and he sits upon the Ways and Means Committee. Cannon and Otter (now governor of Idaho) were members of House Resources, which oversees water issues in the Klamath basin.

It's illegal for lobbyists to directly pay for travel expenses for Congresspersons and their staffs, so many have attempted to get around this law by forming 501(c)3 entities and using those as the funding sources. Jack Abramoff did this a number of times, in particular the now infamous Scotland Junkett. However, there are questions as to whether Abramoff's actions were in fact legal, and a number of Congressmen, including Tom Delay, are under investigation by the Public Intergrity Section of the DoJ. Since it is clear that Calvert and Jarrell formed the Western Watch Foundation solely to pay for the travel expenses of public servants, just what did they expect in return?

Posted by MB Williams at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The marriage of two former Interior Department appointees, Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles and Solicitor and Deputy Chief of Staff Sue Ellen Wooldridge made headlines last spring, as it occurred three days after Griles entered into a plea agreement with Wooldridge's most recent employer, the Department of Justice. Talking heads abound suggested that it was an attempt by Griles, who had once been Wooldridge's boss, to protect himself from further prosecution by envoking spousal privilege.

After the last volley in the Washington Post's four-part take-down of "a branch of government unto himself" Dick Cheney, I think the nuptial motivation may have been a bit misplaced. Wooldridge was clearly outted as one of the VP's moles in the Interior Department (and one should not forget, later in the Justice Department). In regards to the 2001-2 Klamath River Basin drought, the WaPo reported:

Bush and Cheney couldn't afford to anger thousands of solidly Republican farmers and ranchers during the midterm elections and beyond. The case also was rapidly becoming a test for conservatives nationwide of the administration's commitment to fixing what they saw as an imbalance between conservation and economics.

"What does the law say?" Christie, the former aide, recalled the vice president asking. "Isn't there some way around it?"

Next, Cheney called Wooldridge, who was then deputy chief of staff to Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton and the woman handling the Klamath situation.

Aides praise Cheney's habit of reaching down to officials who are best informed on a subject he is tackling. But the effect of his calls often leads those mid-level officials scrambling to do what they presume to be his bidding.

That's what happened when a mortified Wooldridge finally returned the vice president's call, after receiving a tart follow-up inquiry from one of his aides. Cheney, she said, "was coming from the perspective that the farmers had to be able to farm -- that was his concern. The fact that the vice president was interested meant that everyone paid attention."

Cheney made sure that attention did not wander. He had Wooldridge brief his staff weekly and, Smith said, he also called the interior secretary directly.

The WaPo pointed out in the first sentence of this segment that Wooldridge at the time was the "19th-ranking Interior Department official"; however, a mere three years later, she held the office of Solicitor, the third-ranking position., after Secretary Gale Norton, and her yet undisclosed romantic partner, Steve Griles (their relationship apparently began in February, 2003.) Wooldridge became Solicitor in June, 2004, as a Bush recess appointment, at a time when the initial revelations of Jack Abramoff's misdeeds were being reported, mostly by the Washington Post.

Senator John McCain, after the initial story broke in the post in late February, 2004, subpoenaed thousands of documents from Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff's firm, and held three hearings beginning in September, 2004. However, at no time during the 2004 hearings, despite having plenty of evidence, did McCain indicate that individuals at the DoI, DoJ or even the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy were party to the Abramoff scandal. This delay allowed the Interior Department to place one of its most compromised, politically and personally, players in the position of "gatekeeper" for DoI documents and employees, while, ostensibly, removing Wooldridge from her dangerous proximity, as Deputy Chief of Staff, to the Secretary. It is not at all surprising then, that when Griles' central role in the Abramoff affair became apparent though Senate testimony and related released documents, that Cheney's mole was moved out of DoI altogether, but into a position where she would have direct oversight into Interior affairs - as Assistant Attorney General of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice, a position previously held by none other than close Cheney friend and fellow Wyomingite, Thomas Sansonetti.

Griles was one of the few people at Interior who knew of Wooldridge's long-time connection to Cheney, and marrying him essentially shut-off that line of attack by would be detractors. One now has to wonder if the huge outpouring of support for leniency (91 letters) in Griles' sentencing was orchestrated as a reward for this nuptial sacrifice.

Italia Federici, however, has not been so lucky, and, having been so thoroughly spurned, has agreed to cooperate with the investigation. Is she a threat at all to Wooldridge? Yesterday, while combing through CREW's pile of FOIA documents released by DoI, I came across this entry in Gale Norton's calendar:

Tuesday, July 10, 2001: 1:00 - 2:00 pm: Italia Federici, Wooldridge, Bettenberg, Ruff, Pfiefle.

William Bettenberg was Director of the Office of Policy Analysis, specializing in hydroelectricity, according to his July 19, 2001 testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He was also, however, Director of the Minerals Management Service during the Reagan Administration, and an expert on allowing BigEnergy to run off with billions in unpaid royalties. Eric Ruff was DoI communications director, and Mark Pfeifle, Norton's press secretary.
When I first noticed that meeting eighteen months ago, I figured it was related to CREA's ANWR campaign, as three weeks later Federici scored a meeting with DoE Secretary Spencer Abraham's CoE, joined by a Teamster's organizer and GOP PR guru, William Greener. However, Wooldridge wasn't directly involved at that time in ANWR, although she had represented Norton and the DoI on Cheney's Energy Task Force working group. And the inclusion of Bettenberg was thoroughly confusing, as he was completely wrapped up in hydroelectric at the time.

While the WaPo's article leaves out the specific timeframe regarding his first contact with Wooldridge, it clearly was in the midst of the initial 2001 crisis, which came to a head in early summer 2001,

when hundreds of farmers and their supporters used torches and crowbars to open the headgates of an irrigation canal four times in one week. Local sheriffs and police stood by, claiming lack of jurisdiction. Now National Park Service police and FBI agents guard the headwaters, but that hasn’t deterred the farmers. They are laying a pipeline that will take water from Upper Klamath Lake directly to the irrigation ditches, bypassing the headgates.

Was the July 10th meeting in response to the call placed a couple weeks earlier by Cheney? There's nothing to indicate one way or another, but clearly, Federici, who at the time was romantically involved with Steve Griles (who was nominated, but not yet confirmed as Deputy Secretary of Interior) and Wooldridge were working on some project together, a project that was important enough for Norton herself to be involved, needed the expertise of Bettelberg, and was a communications/PR issue.

If Cheney Inc. was worried about Griles, it seems clear that they would have figured a way out to silence Federici. It seems, however, that the real danger is Wooldridge, and effectively shutting down Griles' subpoenaed testimony was a nearly brilliant move. Of course, Griles thought he'd be spending three months of newly wedded-bliss in home confinement at the time. I wonder if he's rethinking the wedding now that he's looking at ten months in Club Fed.

Update: McClatchy is reporting that the House Resources Committee, chaired by Nick Rahall (D-WV) is opening hearings on the Klamath due to the WaPo's reporting:

House panel to investigate Cheney's Klamath River actions
David Whitney | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: June 28, 2007 07:58:29 PM

WASHINGTON — The House Natural Resources Committee announced Thursday that it will hold hearings into Vice President Dick Cheney's involvement in Klamath River water management that many think led to the die-off of more than 70,000 salmon four years ago.

"It certainly appears that this administration will stop at nothing to achieve political gain from natural resources disasters," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall, the West Virginia Democrat who heads the panel.

Three dozen House Democrats from Oregon and California asked for the hearing in a letter to Rahall after the Washington Post reported on details of Cheney's intervention.

According to the newspaper, Cheney personally contacted Sue Ellen Wooldridge -- a Northern Californian who then was Interior Secretary Gale Norton's top aide for the Klamath -- about his concerns over the Bureau of Land Management's decision to stop deliveries of irrigation water. At the time the region was emerging from a severe drought in 2001, and the BLM was enforcing a finding by scientists that water diversions to farmers would harm endangered salmon and suckerfish.

Posted by MB Williams at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

John Doolittle's in the news again today, and not because tens of thousands of residents of the CA-04 are watching fire crews (staffing on the Agoura fire is now 2,174 -- which is a big fire crew) struggle with 60 mph overnight winds, when fire attack, containment and burn-out should be conducted, and ongoing high winds, high temps, and low humidity.

The estimate is that 800 homes and 275 commercial properties are threatened by the fire, which is burning on the edge of South Lake Tahoe and threatens South Lake Tahoe, Tahoe Valley, Gardner Mountain, Camp Richardson and the Tahoe Keys. The website for the fire is here, and the estimated loss for the almost 200 families already burned out is $141,000,000.

Nope, John Doolittle's in the news today because the DoJ is closing in on his cash cover with Jack Abramoff. The Sac Bee has a nice piece here.

What the SacBee doesn't have is the first page of Gail Norton's daybook. Guess who was first to call Secretary Gail Norton? -- Why yes, it was John Doolittle. Do you suppose he was under the impression that the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit of the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture actually reported to the Secretary of the Interior, and not the Secretary of Agriculture? Or was he calling on behalf of all the the CA-04's residents who engage in hard rock mining, or drill for oil, or irrigate with federal water? Maybe he was trying to get USGS topo maps at a discount?

I'm sure there was a good reason for a guy with Doolittle's connections to be calling the person Tom Sansonetti, on behallf of the Western States "Wise Use" faction in the Cheney transition, selected for Secretary of the Interior. He needed a recipe for s'mores and instructions on how to start a campfire.

Posted by EBW at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I just posted this as a comment over at The Next Hurrah, in regards to Marcy's post yesterday on Kempthorne's secretive New Subcommittee on Royalty Revenue Management, which, according to POGO, met this week.

The subcommittee itself is just chockful of interesting folk. First, there's David Deal, who was originally picked by Kempthorne to head the subcommittee, but withdrew that idea after outcry from Senators investigating MMS. So who is Deal? From Findlaw,

"Immediately prior to joining the firm, Mr. Deal served as Assistant General Counsel & Director, Office of General Counsel, for the American Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C., the nation's largest petroleum industry association. Mr. Deal, who has extensive experience in the federal regulatory process, had worked for the Institute since 1975. He has written and delivered testimony before Congress, analyzed legislation, managed challenges of agency regulations in federal courts, mostly the DC Circuit, and participated in regulatory negotiation. His natural resources and environmental experience includes serving as senior legal advisor on the Clean Air Act, with 10 years devoted almost exclusively to state and federal motor fuels issues.

For more than 20 years, he was the sole API lawyer on federal royalty management matters including legislation, rulemaking, litigation, and Congressional investigations. In addition, he was the sole API lawyer on OCS Lands Act, Mineral Lands Leasing Act and Coastal Zone Management Act matters. He served as a two-term member of the Secretary of the Interior's Royalty Management Advisory Committee. Most recently, for his work in the federal royalty management area, Mr. Deal was named to receive a US Department of the Interior Mineral Management Service's Corporate Leadership Award for 2002."

Then there are the two chairs Kempthorne ended up going with: Bob Kerrey and Jake Garn. I'm sure most Progressives have more than a few things to say about Kerrey, but for our purposes, one of the things he is not is an expert on Mineral Management - he spent his time in the Senate on Ag, which has oversite for the Department of Agriculture, not Interior, wherein MMS lies.

More interesting is the selection of Jake Garn, former Senator from Utah. Garn is best known for his authoring of the 1982 Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act, which led to the Savings and Loan meltdown later in the decade. And who was the lobbyist who wrote most of that bill? Fred Thompson.

Also on the committee is Cynthia Lummis, who most recently was one of the three finalists selected by the Wyoming GOP for consideration by the Wyoming Governor to replace Craig Thomas. Thomas was co-chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which has oversight on MMS regarding royalities from Indian Lands. (One of the other finalists was our friend, Tom Sansonetti.) Lummis was Wyoming Treasurer when former MMS director Johnnie Burton was head of the Wyoming Department of Revenue, and they'd previously served in the Wyoming Legislature together.

Of all the committee members, only Deal and Lummis have experience with Mineral Royalties (nearly all of Wyoming's revenue comes from oil, gas and mining royalties.) Clearly, while Kerrey and Garn are figureheads, this is Deal's committee, just like Kempthorne planned all along.

Boy, this gets more interesting by the minute, neh?

With all the dirt the WaPo is slinging at Cheney regarding his hands-on involvement in Interior, this is an intriguing footnote.

Update: Here's an interesting tidbit. While Koch Industries was being investigated in the late 1990s for royalties fraud, Bob Kerrey received contributions totalling $7000 from Koch.

Posted by MB Williams at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As I was busy doing family stuff most of the day, I didn't get around to reading the latest in the WaPo's War on Cheney, Leaving No Tracks, until this evening. The details on Cheney's involvement in the Klamath River case was gut-wrenching, I as was very familiar with how the government's action devastated native fishing in the region (a point the WaPo happened to leave out - I guess fishermen are fishermen, whether Indian, and thus doubly "protected" by the Interior Department due to the Trust relationship.)

While the report is fairly damning, huge details are left out, details which would send all but the most cynical and jaded into the streets in protest. No mention of Sue Ellen Woodridge's former boss and current husband's sentencing hearing today,in which the judge threw out the recommendations of both the defendant and the DoJ, and doubled the prison tmie to ten months. The article mentions that Cheney was "aided by loyalists who owe him for their careers," but makes no mention of one of the highest placed loyalists, Tom Sansonetti, head of the Bush-Cheney Transition Team for Interior, and Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, the department which is supposed to have legal oversight over Interior. Sansonetti was not only from Wyoming, but he was chair of the state GOP while Cheney was in Congress, and ran for the seat when Cheney was appointed Defense Secretary under Bush I. Sansonetti was beat out on the fifth ballot by Craig Thomas, who went on to become a Wyoming Senator. Sansonetti was Thomas' first Chief of Staff, and later, campaign manager.

There's a lot more there, and I'll dive into all tomorrow, when allergies and heat exhaustion lessen, and I've a clear head.

Posted by MB Williams at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's only been one year, eight months since the former Deputy Secretary of the Interior lied to Congressional investigators, but hey, I'll take it. From the DoJ press release:

Former Interior Deputy Secretary Steven Griles Sentenced to 10 Months in Prison for Obstructing U.S. Senate Investigation into Abramoff Corruption Scandal

WASHINGTON - James Steven Griles, the former Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI), has been sentenced to 10 months in prison for obstructing the U.S. Senate’s investigation into the corruption allegations surrounding former Washington lobbyist Jack A. Abramoff, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced today.

Griles, 59, of Falls Church, Va., was also ordered to pay a fine of $30,000, and serve a term of three years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle for the District of Columbia.

On March 23, 2007, Griles pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information charging him with obstructing U.S. Senate Proceedings. In pleading guilty, Griles admitted that he knowingly and willfully lied and concealed material information from senators and Senate investigators about the unique relationship that he had with Abramoff immediately prior to and during his tenure as DOI Deputy Secretary.

Its been a year, five months since I first predicted Griles would in fact do time for his relationship with Abramoff. The question is now, who is next? Norton? Sansonetti? Norquist? Have to put my thinking cap on to make that prediction.

Posted by MB Williams at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over at The Next Hurrah, where Marcy is doing outstanding work on the latest J. Steven Griles sentencing docs, I noted her latest post on Griles' attempt to have the sentence proposed by the Justice Department in his Plea Agreement reduced to three months in-home confinement, 500 hours community service, and a $15,000 fine. Furthermore, Griles' attorneys have even suggested where he could do that community service, in part as the "national counselor and strategic planning coordinator" for "WOW - Wonderful Outdoor World," a purportedly non-profit joint endeavor of Interior, the U.S. EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, American Recreation Coalition and Disney, Inc. Marcy linked to the Project on Government Oversite's (POGO) recent bloodhound work on the subject, and at their site I found a great piece from Dan Berman of Greenwire.

ETHICS: Griles seeks community service with motorized-recreation group

Dan Berman, Greenwire senior reporter

An organization with connections to the Interior Department, motorized recreation industry and the Walt Disney Co. is holding a position open for former Interior Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles if he's sentenced to community service for lying to Congress in the Jack Abramoff investigation.

Griles, 59, wants three months home confinement, 500 hours of community service and a "reasonable" $15,000 fine when he is sentenced June 26. Half the community service would be with "WOW - Wonderful Outdoor World," in the position of national counselor and strategic planning coordinator. In that post, Griles would raise money, develop new public and private partnerships and conduct outreach to the government and media.

The request was part of a voluminous filing with Judge Ellen Huvelle of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The package includes 91 letters supporting Griles from former Interior Secretary Gale Norton, two Reagan-era secretaries, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R), Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.), coal industry executives and a possible Senate nominee from Wyoming, among others.

"It's a small world after all," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "The idea that Steve Griles would consider this community service suggests the line in his mind of corporate service and community service doesn't exist."

I'm planning to do a little more research into this, particularly what role other lawmakers have had in the formation of WOW. In the meantime, I truly hope not to find Steve camped out anywhere near us.

Posted by MB Williams at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Robert Kennedy, Jr. has an article in this month's Vanity Fair on my favorite subject, corruptionand cronyism in the Executive Departments. Here's the teaser:

Texas Chainsaw Management

Spinning the revolving door between government and business as never before, the White House has handed more than 100 top environmental posts to representatives of polluting industries. The author provides a biographical sampler -- and describes a devastating rollback of three decades of progress.

In Kennedy's analysis, he lists a "dirty dozen", his assertion of the twelve worst top Administration officials. Not surprisinly, he lists some of my favorites from Interior and Justice: Steve Griles, Gale Norton, Bill Myers, Lynn Scarlett, Rebecca Watson and Tom Sansonetti. However, he left out the man I consider to be the most dangerous official most people have never heard of: James Cason, Associate Deputy Secretary of the Interior. The position never existed prior to 2001, and Cason, despite being the number 3 man at Interior for the last six years, was never confirmed by the Senate.

I've been planning on writing up Cason for some time now. In light of Johnnie Burton's "retirement", I guess I'll get down to it today.

Posted by MB Williams at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Gonzales won't testify about ...
Steven Griles posts (1/06 - 3/07)
Griles, Federici and Abramoff
The Impending Griles Indictment: Cheney's Energy Tzar dumps Griles
The impending Griles indictment: It's bigger than you think
Yay! The CREA bug bites another Abramoff-phile...
You really want political change in the US?
The recent Abramoff "leaks" and why we should care...
Why provenance matters
McCain, Abramoff and the Indian Trust Fund: The short of it all.
Still on hiatus, but a reminder...
The enemy beneath...
CREA's roots in the former Texas Governor's Office?
Was Jack Abramoff really an "insider"?
A new batch of pigs at the trough...
Answers to "Questions for the Abramoff-obsessed"
"But I barely knew her..."
McCain did have ties to CREA
Fun with typesetting....
Who is Julie Finley?
CREA takes down its website...
A documented history of a Republican front group, part 1
Demand unredacted copies!
Scanlon's jilted fiance key to Abramoff's unraveling
One big happy cesspool...
Left in the drafts ...
Ding dong, the witch is dead!
The missing link?
Things heat up for Griles; Cummings doesn't do her homework
More on CREA
More on J. Steven Griles
Technorati Watch: Day 2
Forget about the little fish...

Update:
Tancredo's CREA friends from a previously unpublished draft

Posted by EBW at 08:20 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Acting Associate Attorney General of the Department of Justice, William Mercer, testified before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee today when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to appear and answer questions relating to a proposal on Tribal Trust "reform"; specifically, a letter with his name on it, offering a $7 billion dollar "settlement" for all claims, past, current and future, from both individuals and tribes, as well as monies to deal with "fractionation" as well as updated computer systems.

A little background on William Mercer. He is acting (not yet confirmed) Associate General for DoJ, the number three man. He has also, since 2001, held the position of U.S. Attorney for the state of Montana, recommended for the position by former Senator Conrad Burns. He has never testified before the Committee on this subject.

A key issue in all this - just what, if anything, is the US government's liability in the mismanagement of the trusts?

To summarize, Chairman Dorgan, addressing William Mercer, brought up the fact that AG Gonzales, when testifying before another Congressional committee, suggested that the trust claims could total over $200 billion dollars. To which Mercer responded (transcribed from webcast:)

Mercer @ 2:10: A couple of points I'd like to make on the statement. I believe that that text was about the allegations that had been set forth in claims as part of the tribal trust litigation. And going to the question that you posed, Mr. Chairman, We've already seen the dismissal of a claim for a hundred billion dollars as part of that ongoing litigation. So we certainly believe that that is... that that figure represents claims that were set forth by the parties...We've already, as I said, prevailed in one of those cases and we believe that the ultimate value is much, much, much less than what the stated claims were by the tribes themselves.

At least on two other occasion, Mercer brings up the $100 billion claim dismissal, as justification as to either no liability on behalf of the US government, or very limited liability.

Enter the new Senator for Montana, Jon Tester (who seems to be quite familiar with his fellow Montanan, even calling him by his first name.)

Tester @ 2:31: It was either you or Bill Mercer, I can't remember which, and either of you can (inaudible)...talked about a claim dismissal of 100 billion dollars... Which one of you...was that you, Bill?

Mercer: Yes

Tester: When was that dismissed and by whom?

Mercer: I don't have a date. I can certainly get one.

Tester: A ballpark figure? Spring of whenever? Month?

Mercer: Evidently, in the past couple of years...

Tester: In the past couple of years.

Mercer: Obviously, it must have postdated...Well, anyway, past couple of years.

Tester: Well, if we could get a date on that...And who dismissed it?

Mercer: I don't know...We'll get that to you too.

Tester: Okay, great. Thank you very much.

As we mentioned in a previous post, Senator Tester did a fine job in his debut in a Tribal Trust hearing venue; now we only hope that his fresh perspective is able to move the Committee past its tradition of bending and scraping to the entities, particularly the extraction industries, which have exploited Indian Country for their own profit for over a century.

Posted by MB Williams at 11:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

1. Professor Bainbridge's Frivolous Disparate Impact Case by Dwight Meredith on April 27, 2005

2. Grave Injustice by EBW on April 27, 2005

3. Three sheets to the windby EBW on March 16, 2005

4. Why Not Raymond Burr? -- Thomas Griffith Edition by Dwight Meredith on March 14, 2005

5. Why Not Raymond Burr? -- William Myers Edition by Dwight Meredith on March 13, 2005

6. A Judicial Nominee Didn't Practice Law (enuf) With A License by EBW on March 11, 2005
   

Posted by EBW at 02:22 PM |