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Judge Tells Lawyers for Secretary to Have Her in Court on Feb. 13

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The federal judge hearing contempt charges against Interior Secretary Gale Norton ordered her to appear in his courtroom next Wednesday, February 13, at 10 a.m. to answer questions from Indian plaintiffs in the Cobell case.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth rejected arguments by U.S. Attorneys office lawyers who have been defending Norton in court during the two-month contempt trial and who fought today to keep her off the witness stand.

Norton will be the first Cabinet member to face interrogation on contempt charges by the Cobell plaintiffs. Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt testified in the Cobell case in a 1999 trial on trust reform in the same courtroom. Lamberth also found both Babbitt and then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in contempt in February 1999.

Lead plaintiffs attorney Dennis M. Gingold is calling Norton as a rebuttal witness, to be questioned about claims made by the government in her defense during the past two weeks. Norton has not appeared in the coutroom during the trial.

Norton and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb face five counts of contempt for ignoring Lamberth’s order to reform the failed Individual Indian Monies (IIM) trust, failing to provide the IIM trust beneficiaries with an historical accounting for their money and submitting false quarterly reports to Lamberth about Interior’s supposed progress on reform. Lamberth already has ruled that an investigator’s report on the utter lack of computer security for trust accounting data is a prima facie case of contempt.

The government completed its defense today. Norton is expected to be the last witness called in the trial.

Philip Smith can be contacted by phone, 202-661-6350.