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Norton, McCaleb and Seven Others Responsible for "Rampant, Pervasive, Long-Standing" Practice

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Cobell plaintiffs asked a federal judge today for additional contempt sanctions against Interior Secretary Gale Norton and senior Interior and Justice Department lawyers for destroying evidence in the Cobell case and covering up the destruction.

Despite repeated court orders to preserve electronic records, including e-mails, Solicitor’s Office lawyers at Interior “engaged in a pattern of overwriting (and thus destroying the data embedded in) e-mail back-up tapes” at Washington, D.C. headquarters as well as field and regional offices around the country, the plaintiffs charged in court papers filed late yesterday (3/20).

A court-appointed special master, Alan Balaran, concluded in a July 27, 2001 report that the Interior officials had willfully and repeatedly destroyed the evidence and failed to inform U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who is hearing the Cobell case. Government attorneys did not challenge Balaran’s findings, which means the findings stand as admissions.

The contempt motion names Norton and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb in their official capacity as named defendants in Cobell v. Norton, the class action aimed at cleaning up mismanagement of the individual Indian trust. It also names seven current and former Interior and DOJ lawyers: Lois Schiffer, James Simon, Phillip Brooks, Charles Findlay, Edith Blackwell, Ed Cohen and Willa Perlmutter.

Six of the seven also are part of a group of 39 officials and lawyers whom the plaintiffs moved to hold in contempt for obstructing trust reform and lying to the court. Judge Lamberth has asked that the plaintiffs move forward on those contempt charges.

Lamberth – angered by statements to Congress by Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles that the contempt charges are hindering trust reform – told the Indian plaintiffs last week to begin drawing up specific charges against the 39.

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