In 1996, a class action suit against the govt's handling of oil royalties from lands owned by Indians but controlled by the Interior Dept asked for some $$$47BIL in back revenues, claiming monumental mismanagement of the land and the contracts. Yesterday a Clintonite judge ruled that the Indians were owed money alright but refused to countenance a massive award.
The Native Americans' attorneys said that the government had badly mismanaged the trusts and that there was a shortfall of nearly $4 billion. At a June bench trial, the lawyers said the Native Americans were owed $47 billion, a figure that represented the "benefit" the government received from improperly using the missing money. That figure was lower than the $58 billion estimate given before the trial started.
However, Robertson found their arguments unconvincing. The Native Americans' calculations suffer "from numerous methodological flaws that were illuminated by the government's presentation and, in many instances, are obvious to anyone having basic familiarity with the case," the judge wrote.
Maybe, but the article doesn't illuminate what those flaws are and even the prosecution agrees that the govt royally screwed up.
The government has run into trouble trying to account for the money. Many records are missing. Some are kept in different forms and others were destroyed.
Does any of that sound familiar? Faced with a potentially enormous judgment when it would have to come up with money equal to paying for a full day of the Iraq war and give it to...Indians!...they, ahem, lose all the evidence. "Sorry. My bad. But now you can't prove anything so, tough titties, you lose."
But..but..but what happened to all that "personal responsibility" crap from the Republicans? I mean, the govt is clearly responsible for screwing native Americans out of $$$billions$$$ that should have been paid to them except that nobody thought you had to honor a contract with effin' Indians, fer gawd's sake. And the govt, back in the day, made itself responsible. It set up the deal, the terms of the deal, and took over management of the accounts. Nobody asked them to do that.
Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff in the dispute, said in a statement that she is "disappointed" by the ruling and is weighing whether to appeal.
"We believe we presented a strong, compelling case," she said.
Cobell, a leader of the Blackfeet tribe in northwest Montana, filed the class-action lawsuit in 1996, seeking to force the Interior Department to account for billions of dollars in royalties from Indian lands held in trust by the government. The origins of the suit date to 1887, when the government divided up millions of acres of Indian reservation land and parceled it out to individual Native Americans, then put the lots into trusts controlled by the Interior department.
On behalf of the Native Americans, the government then leased the land to oil, gas and other companies.
(emphasis added)
Then they lose the paper trail because, you know, it's Indians and they don't count.
Well, they do count and the judge just said they counted, only not enough to get back everything they're owed. Once again, everything they own is stolen and they're given a pittance in return because, you know, it's just Indians.
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