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THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 2003

Welcome to In The Hoop, Indianz.Com's occasional column about assorted Indian issues.

Look who is gloating now
Some Department of Interior officials reacted with glee yesterday upon reading a Denver Post column that defended the Bush administration's (in)action on the trust fund and criticized attorneys representing 500,000 Indian beneficiaries.

One was so excited that he made sure others got copies of Al Knight's opinion piece. After mounds of negative press, it was the one bright spot in this political appointee's short career.

But just in case you are wondering who Knight is, you can check out some of this other columns. To cut the story short, he opposes bilingual education, supports immigration curbs and disdains environmental advocates. Auntie Gale is in good company.

Can You Spare a Dime, Brother?
The benefits of tribal casinos only go so far, In The Hoop has just learned. One top official for an Indian gaming group, who frequently refers to people he likes as "brothers" but those he doesn't as "hypocrites," has been so distraught by his negative press that he doesn't want other Indians to read about it.

So when he recently ran into the chief executive of a successful Indian enterprise, he had some advice: Don't pay your employees! So much for generating jobs for Indian people.

Trust Experts
Remember when Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles couldn't outline the standards by which Indian trust assets should be managed? Well, it turns out he's been ignorant for almost 20 years.

A January 6 court filing by the Indian plaintiffs cited a recent deposition of Griles in which he said he was asked -- by none other than Ross Swimmer -- to review coal leases for the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe. Thanks to his expert knowledge (which consists of being paid by the coal industry), they eventually were approved, leading to the Supreme Court dispute that was heard last month.

The exchange went as follows:

Q. Wasn't it Mr. Swimmer the person you testified earlier to who didn't have the trust knowledge and turned to you on that one expert case?
GRILES: No, what I indicated is, he asked me to look at the coal leases and advise him and the Secretary on the standards and the conditions in terms of the coal leases that were in question.
Q. And those coal leases were trust property?
GRILES: Those coal leases were leases that have been entered into by the Navajo and Hopi Tribes and submitted to the Department of Interior for approval.
Q. So the answer to my question is yes?
GRILES: You characterize it that way. You called them trust properties.
Q. Trust property, yes.
GRILES: A coal lease is a trust property?
Q. It's a trust asset, isn't it?
GRILES: The property, the coal itself is a trust asset.
Q. But the lease isn't?
GRILES: It's a document. I mean, it can be a trust document. I don't consider it a trust asset.

In Your Hoop
Do you know what your trust assets are? Email us and let us know.

More of In The Hoop
Jan. 2 | Dec. 20