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"The Secretary's plan announced today is another typical, last-minute, backs-to-the-wall effort to stave off corrective action by the Court. Now that she is faced with the threat of criminal contempt and having the trust pulled out of the Department and placed in the hands of a receiver, the Secretary and her senior aides have patched together an ill-advised plan in mere days, after stonewalling the Court for 11 months. This is reminiscent of the Secretary's 'reorganization' of the Office of Special Trustee on the eve of the 1999 contempt trial, which led directly to the then-Special Trustee's resignation.

"The bottom line is that the plan released today is a clear admission by the government that everything we, the Indian plaintiffs, have been alleging for five and a half years was true. The trust is a shambles and in need of top-to-bottom reconstruction. We hope, and expect, that the Court will not delay justice for another six months or a year while the Secretary rearranges the chairs at her Department - stripping the Native American employees of the BIA, in the meantime, of their trust responsibilities, as if this mess if their fault."

For media inquiries contact Philip Smith, by phone: 202-661-6350, or send e-mail to: psmith@policyimpact.com.