Illegal acts by Federal Officials continue to go unpunished. One reason the Federal Bureaucracy is out of control - apparently they are above the law. The other reason is Big Media hides scandals like this on B2, if they print it at all. I'm sure Dan and Pete will run with this one:
US: Documents on Indians backdated
No prosecution of former official
By Sean P. Murphy, Globe Staff, 3/1/2002
A top federal official at the Bureau of Indian Affairs illegally backdated documents to give government recognition to an Indian tribe seeking to build a casino, according to a report compiled by federal investigators.
But Michael Anderson, the Clinton administration official who gave recognition for the Nipmuc Indian tribe of central Massachusetts and the Duwamish Tribe of Seattle, will not face prosecution.
The Justice Department declined to prosecute Anderson after receiving a referral from the Inspector General's Office of the Interior Department, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Justice officials were unavailable for comment late yesterday afternoon.
After leaving office on Jan. 19, 2001, Anderson returned to the Interior Department headquarters on Jan. 22 to sign and backdate documents giving the Duwamish the right to open a casino, a hugely lucrative business in areas near the population centers of the Northeast and Northwest.
Anderson had apparently neglected to sign the Duwamish papers in the frenzy of the last hours in office. On Jan. 22, 2001, he had a former assistant bring the documents to him while he waited outside the Interior building in his car, the report says. There, he signed and backdated the documents, and the assistant returned them to the files.
The Inspector General's report was made public yesterday by US Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, who contends the process for recognizing groups as official tribes is flawed and influenced by money and politics, particularly in recent years as tribes close to urban areas realize billions from casino operations.
Wolf yesterday urged Attorney General John Ashcroft to reconsider his decision to forgo prosecution of Anderson and M. Sharon Blackwell, a current ranking Bureau of Indian Affairs official who was aware of Anderson's actions. Blackwell announced her retirement earlier this week. No reason was given.
The Inspector General's Office had also referred to the Justice Department the case of Hilda Manual, who ran afoul of lobbying laws when representing the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribe of Cape Cod after leaving the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Justice Department declined to prosecute that case as well.
Wolf said he spoke with Ashcroft about reconsideration after Ashcroft appeared before the House subcommittee on appropriations for the Justice Department, which Wolf chairs.
''It's highly unethical what they did,'' Wolf said in an interview later. ''After these documented abuses, I don't think there's much chance these tribes can go on and get recognition and open casinos.''
In a letter to Ashcroft, Wolf wrote, ''I implore you to reevaluate this decision. The report confirms that the tribal recognition process has been compromised. And more specifically it documented the serious misconduct of Clinton administration appointees.''
Anderson, Blackwell and Manual did not return telephone calls yesterday. A spokeswoman for the Bureau of Indian Affairs said the report had not been made available to that office.
The Inspector General's report portrays the Bureau of Indian Affairs as being in a frenzy to conclude recognition of the two tribes before the Bush administration took over on Jan. 20, 2001, and riven by distrust between Anderson and other officials who opposed the recognition - to the point of threatened physical violence.
''Staff collectively described the last 17 days of the Clinton administration as pure hell,'' the report says. Anderson, who took over as acting head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Jan. 3, 2001, and an assistant, Loretta Tuell, pushed the staff to reverse the staff findings on the Nipmuc and Duwamish recognition applications.
The staff, made up of historians, anthropologists and genealogists and known as the Bureau of Acknowledgment and Research, had concluded neither tribe met the criteria for federal recognition. Besides the right to open a casino, federal recognition makes tribes eligible for federal assistance in housing, health, education and other programs.
''Tuell had pressed the (researchers) for a positive outcome on the Nipmuc and Duwamish tribes,'' the report says. And when the staff complained and suggested they put their concerns in a memo, Blackwell ''told them not to put their concerns on paper.''
Blackwell told the investigators that in those tense hours she ''considered physical confrontations a realistic possibility, expecting someone to `get slapped,''' inside the Interior Building, the report says.
Sean P. Murphy's e-mail address is smurphy@globe.com.
This story ran on page B2 of the Boston Globe on 3/1/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
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