FROM THE ARCHIVE

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Trust fund monitor has secret document
THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2002

Last Updated: 11:28 a.m. EDT.

A court investigator in the Indian trust fund case has obtained a document he says may support allegations surrounding the recent ouster of a top Department of Interior official.

In a short report, court monitor Joseph S. Kieffer III today said he "has come into possession" of a document that relates to the recent resignation of Special Trustee Tom Slonaker. Slonaker has said in press accounts that he was asked to leave by Secretary Gale Norton or be fired.

Kieffer says the document "does not directly pertain" to Slonaker's resignation. "However, it does pertain to Mr. Slonaker's statements surrounding the alleged actions of the White House and Department of Justice attorneys in striking and suppressing the written testimony of the Special Trustee," he wrote.

Kieffer has turned over the document to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. But it was filed under seal.

An attorney representing 500,000 Indian beneficiaries said intends to make the information public. "We will file to get the document unsealed. We have a right to it," said Keith Harper of the Native American Rights Fund.

A few days before he left his post, Slonaker told Indianz.Com that he participated in a telephone call with Department of Justice and White House attorneys. He said they objected to testimony he was to give the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on July 25.

"They took exception to what a lot of what I was planning to say in the written testimony," he said . "Two-thirds of the document was stricken."

Slonaker went to the hearing anyway -- with the department's full support, he said -- but without a written statement. At the hearing, he told the committee that an historical accounting of Indian funds would not be complete or accurate.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has called for an investigation into the matter. In letters to the Senate committee and to Norton, he said Slonaker's resignation, and the apparent reasons for it, were "troubling."

Slonaker said in addition to the government attorneys, a representative of the Interior's legislative staff was on the phone call.

Read the Report:
Special Report of the Court Monitor (8/8)

Relevant Documents:
McCain to Norton (8/2) | McCain to Inouye (8/2)

Relevant Links:
Indian Trust, Department of Interior - http://www.doi.gov/indiantrust
Indian Trust: Cobell v. Norton - http://www.indiantrust.com
Trust Reform, NCAI - http://www.ncai.org/main/pages/
issues/other_issues/trust_reform.asp