WASHINGTON,
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth expressed frustration this week as the Interior Department presented him with yet another plan to reform the broken Indian Trust system.
"I'm pretty pessimistic," the judge declared Wednesday.
Lamberth said the new plans from the Bush administration are identical to plans he heard from the Clinton administration four years ago.
Ross O. Swimmer, the government's final witness in the latest trial over the trust system, conceded that much of what he was saying about the need for a new computer system to resolve programs with the trust system was similar to what his predecessors had told the judge in 1999.
"I am, your honor, saying the same thing," said Swimmer, Interior's special trustee charged with overseeing the trust system.
Twice during Swimmer's testimony, the judge told him his plans to reform the system had a familiar ring.
"The people who were sitting in your seat said the same thing to me in 1999," the judge said. "...I don't see the difference, do you?"
Lamberth said he regretted not listening then to the testimony presented to him by experts for Elouise Cobell and the class of all past and present individual Indian Trust beneficiaries. Those experts were skeptical of the Clinton administration's plans for a new, $40 million trust management computer system.
But Lamberth said he accepted the arguments of Interior officials who assured him their computers would work. They didn't, Swimmer acknowledged.
When the judge asked Swimmer, how long his proposed trust information system would take to become operational, Swimmer replied: "I'd be hard-pressed to say." He then added it was "a good 12 months away."
Whether such a promise is acceptable is one of the key issues before Lamberth. Since May 1, he has been holding a trial on how to best reform the trust system.
Swimmer confirmed a $6 million shortage in the current pool of individual Indian Trust accounts, held at the Treasury Department.
A group of Indians suing the government have said that their accounts may be billions of dollars short, the result of massive mismanagement of their accounts and missing records. The accounts were established in 1887 to hold the proceeds from the leases of Indian lands in the West for oil, gas, mineral and grazing leases, as well as timber sales.
Numerous studies dating almost from the trust's inception showed that the individual Indian Trust accounts have been, and continue to be, plagued by malfeasance, systematic records destruction, fraud and incompetence.
Swimmer, the former assistant Interior secretary for Indian affairs, will remain on the stand for the rest of the week.
The trial is expected to end July 8.
Indian Trust
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To view the latest information concerning this case, please go to: http://www.indiantrust.com
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth expressed frustration this week as the Interior Department presented him with yet another plan to reform the broken Indian Trust system.
"I'm pretty pessimistic," the judge declared Wednesday.
Lamberth said the new plans from the Bush administration are identical to plans he heard from the Clinton administration four years ago.
Ross O. Swimmer, the government's final witness in the latest trial over the trust system, conceded that much of what he was saying about the need for a new computer system to resolve programs with the trust system was similar to what his predecessors had told the judge in 1999.
"I am, your honor, saying the same thing," said Swimmer, Interior's special trustee charged with overseeing the trust system.
Twice during Swimmer's testimony, the judge told him his plans to reform the system had a familiar ring.
"The people who were sitting in your seat said the same thing to me in 1999," the judge said. "...I don't see the difference, do you?"
Lamberth said he regretted not listening then to the testimony presented to him by experts for Elouise Cobell and the class of all past and present individual Indian Trust beneficiaries. Those experts were skeptical of the Clinton administration's plans for a new, $40 million trust management computer system.
But Lamberth said he accepted the arguments of Interior officials who assured him their computers would work. They didn't, Swimmer acknowledged.
When the judge asked Swimmer, how long his proposed trust information system would take to become operational, Swimmer replied: "I'd be hard-pressed to say." He then added it was "a good 12 months away."
Whether such a promise is acceptable is one of the key issues before Lamberth. Since May 1, he has been holding a trial on how to best reform the trust system.
Swimmer confirmed a $6 million shortage in the current pool of individual Indian Trust accounts, held at the Treasury Department.
A group of Indians suing the government have said that their accounts may be billions of dollars short, the result of massive mismanagement of their accounts and missing records. The accounts were established in 1887 to hold the proceeds from the leases of Indian lands in the West for oil, gas, mineral and grazing leases, as well as timber sales.
Numerous studies dating almost from the trust's inception showed that the individual Indian Trust accounts have been, and continue to be, plagued by malfeasance, systematic records destruction, fraud and incompetence.
Swimmer, the former assistant Interior secretary for Indian affairs, will remain on the stand for the rest of the week.
The trial is expected to end July 8.
Indian Trust
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To view the latest information concerning this case, please go to: http://www.indiantrust.com