Copyright © 1998 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Cherokee Press Association
Copyright © 1998 CPA
All Rights Reserved

A Washington attorney lobbied high-ranking Department of Interior officials he described as personal friends to take over Cherokee law enforcement, testimony reveals.

U.S. District Judge Michael Burrage is expected to rule today whether attorney James Hamilton must testify about what he told top federal officials and advice he gave Chief Joe Byrd during a Cherokee constitutional crisis now in its 12th month.

Hamilton claims the information sought falls under attorney-client privilege and that the tribe's executive branch is his client, not the tribal council.

Councilor Paula Holder contends the council has a right to know how Hamilton's representation of Byrd affected the crisis and the BIA's takeover of tribal law enforcement in April 1997. The BIA still is in control.

Hamilton's firm also billed for conferences on behalf of Byrd with the Democratic National Committee's general counsel and high-ranking Department of Justice official.

The council appropriated funds only for Hamilton's legal work on issues in connection with the Delawares splitting from the Cherokee Nation, Holder said.

Hamilton, a vice president of the 175-member law firm of Swidler & Berlin, testified in a February 2 deposition in the office of Tulsa attorney Chuck Shipley. Hamilton said his major area of practice is criminal law involving different types of government investigations.

Holder and two other councilors sued Swidler & Berlin in tribal court, alleging Hamilton over billed the tribe. The firm then sued the councilors in federal court in Muskogee alleging the tribal court has no jurisdiction over it. Hamilton alleges the overcharging claim is "spurious" and frivolous. The suggestion that I have intentionally overcharged galls me when I've reduced my bills-$150,000," Hamilton said in a Friday phone interviews.

Tribal records reflect the Cherokees paid Swidler & Berlin more than $600,000 in fiscal year 1997, although outside auditors could find no contract with the firm and the tribal council had appropriated only $300,000.

Swidler & Berlin billing records indicate Hamilton began representing Byrd in the constitutional crisis three days after tribal marshals seized documents from tribal headquarters while executing a search warrant on Feb. 25, 1997.

Byrd fired the marshals and ignored an order of the tribe's highest court, the Judicial Appeals Tribunal, reinstating the marshals.

Hamilton has testified the BIA had unilateral authority to assume tribal law enforcement when there "is some jeopardy, which is what they did." Hamilton testified he probably would have said the fired marshals had declined to turn in their weapons and there were two armed security forces and a potential for violence. "I was really afraid somebody was going to get hurt," Hamilton testified.

Hamilton, described one billing involving a discussion with his personal and "social friend," Deputy Interior Secretary John Raymond Garamendi, at a Sunday brunch at Garamendi's home in May 1997. "And if I recall that correctly, I told him I thought they had performed a public service by -- the BIA performed a public service by taking over law enforcement, that it was a dangerous situation out there, and I thought they had performed a public service."

Hamilton volunteered information about his Washington contacts in his testimony, which included that he was in charge of screening the entire cabinet in the Clinton transition and the senior White House staff, hiring 100 attorneys to accomplish the task. He testified he screened Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt for Clinton in 1993 when Babbitt was a candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court. "So I spent a great deal of time with Babbitt, so I know him well from that context," Hamilton testified.

He also testified Byrd hired him upon recommendation of Kim Teehee, a friend of an associate attorney in his firm, William Pipestem. Byrd loaned Teehee, a tribal law clerk, to the Democratic National Convention during Clinton's campaign The Cherokees paid her expenses and salary while she was with the DNC, which resulted in a criminal charge of diversion of funds being filed against Byrd in tribal court. That and another diversion charge involving unauthorized payments to outside attorneys still is pending against Byrd.

Hamilton testified the firm also billed the Cherokees for a conference Pipestem had with two DNC officials.

Hamilton testified he thought the DNC issue was about "some contribution to the chief for the DNC, there had been some contribution made to that effort by the tribe or by a group of tribes and there was some reimbursement being made by the DNC back to the tribes. "The issue of Ms. Teehee was sort of wrapped up in these matters that would be investigated."

A DNC spokeswoman who has since moved to Clinton's press staff, Amy Weiss Tobe, told the Phoenix earlier that the DNC was negotiating a possible repayment of more than $20,000 to the Cherokees in connection with Teehee's work at the DNC.

Hamilton also testified he lumped several matters under "search warrant" issues for billing purposes...a number of interpersonal, internal disputes and that was part of it."

Hamilton refused to elaborate on the DNC issue. But when told some Cherokees had questioned if donation to the DNC were funneled through his firm and later billed as legal fees, Hamilton emphatically denied that. "There was no contribution to the DNC for the Cherokees through my law firm--that's absolute hog wash," he told the Phoenix.