Officials Destroyed Records on Native Americans, Judge Says

Government officials under fire for mismanaging billions of dollars in trust funds belonging to Native Americans shredded 162 boxes of records a year ago and hid the destruction for three months, a federal judge disclosed Monday.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who has been working to rectify decades of negligence in the government’s handling of Native American trust funds, said that he was “deeply disturbed” by delays in reporting the destruction of records but would postpone any sanctions for the time being.

The disclosure is the latest development in a long-running class-action lawsuit against the government filed on behalf of 300,000 Native Americans, and it comes as a court-appointed mediator continues to try to resolve government mismanagement of the funds.

Analysts said that the development further weakens past government arguments that federal officials are capable of instituting needed trust fund reforms on their own, without court supervision.

Treasury Department lawyers who learned of the shredding ordered it halted Jan. 28. But they initially failed to recognize the relevance of the old records that had been destroyed or their obligation to inform Lamberth of what they viewed as routine document destruction, a court-appointed investigator concluded.

“This is a system clearly out of control,” investigator Alan Balaran wrote in his report, which was made public by Lamberth.

Treasury said that the boxes contained government forms “reflecting disbursements made by . . . federal agencies from the beginning of the 20th century until approximately 1958” and were stored in the basement of a federal facility in Hyattsville, Md., a Washington suburb.

The halt to the shredding took place about the time Lamberth was concluding a trial on the government’s conduct in the class-action lawsuit. He ultimately cited then-Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt for contempt of court for failing to insure that other government documents were turned over to the Native American plaintiffs.

The latest action shows that Treasury’s statements about preserving relevant documents “turned out to be . . . false representations,” the judge said.

Justice Department attorneys asked Lamberth to delay making public the investigative report, contending that it could cause “severe and unfair damage” to the reputations of several Treasury lawyers interviewed in the shredding inquiry. But Lamberth rejected that request, contending that the lawyers had failed to “come forward forthrightly” to alert him at the time of the infraction.

“While the court certainly understands the motivation of the affected individuals who have sought to keep this report under seal, the court must express its disappointment that the United States would join their efforts,” Lamberth said in his order denying the request.

Keith Harper, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, which has spearheaded the lawsuit, told reporters that the document destruction “bolsters our argument that there needs to be judicial supervision if trust fund management is to be reformed.”

Eloise Cobell, the lead Native American plaintiff, added: “We’re tired of the cover-up. We can understand that documents may have been destroyed, but why not just come forward and admit it? It shows the government does not take this case seriously.”

The trust funds were established in the 1830s during the Andrew Jackson administration, part of a government effort to compensate individual Native Americans for use of their land while weakening tribal control of valuable assets.

The government is supposed to manage the accounts and pass along royalties from the sale of petroleum, timber and other natural resources. The government says that it has deposited about $350 million each year into the accounts. But officials have been unable to give an accounting of where all the money has gone, citing damage to old documents and an antiquated record system.