The Bergen Record
>Tuesday, December 7, 1999
>Judge blasts U.S. for coverup
>
>
>
>By MATT KELLEY
>The Associated Press
>
>WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department shredded potential evidence in
>a multibillion-dollar lawsuit over Native American trust funds, then
>covered it
>up for more than three months, a court-appointed investigator concluded.
>
>Government lawyers in the case misled the federal judge overseeing the
>case,
>investigator Alan Balaran said in a report released Monday. In a strongly
>worded opinion released with the report, U.S. District Judge Royce
>Lamberth
>also accused government lawyers of making false statements to him.
>
>"This is a system clearly out of control," Balaran wrote. He said the
>shredding
>and coverup were "part of a greater pattern of obfuscation" by the=
> government
>in the lawsuit over the mishandling of accounts for more than 300,000
>Native
>Americans now worth about $500 million.
>
>In February, Lamberth held then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and
>Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in contempt of court for mishandling
>other
>records in the case. Workers shredded 162 boxes of Treasury Department
>documents possibly related to the lawsuit while Lamberth was holding
>hearings on the contempt issue -- starting the day Treasury officials
>testified
>about destroying microfilm, the Treasury Department acknowledged later.
>
>After ordering the shredding halted Jan. 28, Treasury Department lawyers
>waited more than 14 weeks before notifying the Justice Department and
>Lamberth in May, the department also has acknowledged.
>
>In his Monday order, Lamberth wrote that he was "deeply disturbed" by the
>delay and by the fact that the government's assurances that records were
>being preserved "turned out to be just as false as those false=
> representations
>that led to the court's February contempt findings."
>
>The Treasury and Justice Departments issued a joint statement Monday
>noting
>that Balaran's report was not a final court determination. The Treasury
>Department ordered an internal investigation of the incident in June, the
>statement said.
>
>"In fairness to all concerned, we caution against drawing conclusions
>prematurely," the statement said, without explaining whether the
>departments
>took issue with anything Balaran wrote.
>
>The Native Americans' lawyers said last month they would seek another
>contempt citation after Balaran found trust-fund documents dumped into a
>shed with used tires and other debris on a North Dakota reservation.
>
>Justice Department lawyers had joined five Treasury Department lawyers in
>asking Lamberth to delay releasing the report, saying it "could result in
>severe and unfair damage" to the Treasury lawyers' reputations. Lamberth
>rejected that request Monday.
>
>Copyright =A9 1999 Bergen Record Corp.
>