News from Indian Country
Pge 12 Spilysy Tymoo December 8, 2005
Abramoff investigator used
lobbyist's skybox, helped client
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)
- The top Senate Democrat in
vestigating Jack Abramoff s In
dian lobbying met several times
with the lobbyist's team and cli
ents, held a fundraiser in
Abramoff's arena skybox and
arranged congressional help for
one of the tribes, records show.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.,
acknowledges he got Congress
in fall 2003 to press govern
ment regulators to decide, after
decades of delay, whether the
Mashpce Wampanoag tribe of
Massachusetts deserved federal
recognition.
Dorgan met with the tribe's
representatives and collected at
least $11,500 in political, dona
tions from Abramoff partner
Michael D. Smith, who was rep
resenting the Mashpce, around
the time he helped craft the leg
islation, according to interviews
and documents obtained by The
Associated Press.
The senator didn't reimburse
die Mississippi Choctaw for the
use of Abramoff's skybox in
2001, when the tribe threw him
a fundraiser there, instead treat
ing it as a tribal contribution. He
only recently reimbursed the
tribe for the box, four years later,
after determining it was con
nected to Abramoff.
Dorgan says he sees no rea
son to step down from the
Abramoff investigation, which
he and Sen. John McCain, R
Ariz., are leading He said he had
no idea at the time that any of
the transactions were connected
Tribal leader Allen honored
: PORTLAND (AP) - W Ron
Allen, executive director of the
Jamestown S'Kallam tribe of
Washington, has been awarded
the $25,000 Buffet Award for
Indigenous Leadership.
Allen, of Sequim, Wash., was
honored for his decades of
work toward tribal sovereignty,
treaty rights and governmental
responsibilities.
He said he will use some of
Makahs buying timber land traded
NEAH BAY, Wash. (AP) -The
Makah Tribe has been buy
ing land between its main reser
vation here at the tip of
Washington's Olympic Peninsula
and the Ozette Indian Reserva
tion to the south, potentially
doubling its yearly timber rev
enue. Much of the tribe's prop
Warm Springs Full Gospel Church
presents ,
For Unto Us A Child Is Born
)
I
to Abramoff or the alleged
fleecing of tribes.
"I never met Jack Abramoff
but I am appalled by what we
have learned about his actions,"
Dorgan said Thursday. "So I
have never felt there was any
conflict in my helping to lead
that investigation. I think Sen.
McCain would agree our inves
tigation has been relentless and
that neither of us will be di
verted." Dorgan's contacts, donations
and fundraisers involving
Abramoff tribal clients and lob
bying associates, as well as those
of other lawmakers, have not
been examined during the Sen
, ate hearings into the lobbyist's
roughly $80 million in charges
to the tribes.
The senator didn't volunteer
the information, although he did
disclose his donations in cam
paign reports over the years.
Larry Noble, the
government's former chief elec
tion enforcement lawyer, said
Dorgan should have considered
stepping aside from the inquiry
and at the very least should have
disclosed all his own intersec
tions with Abramoff's associates
and tactics.
"I think any way you look at
it he had an obligation to dis
close," Noble said. "It is hard
for anyone not to see a conflict
when you're investigating the
same activity you yourself were
involved with."
Over the last month, the AP
has reported that about four
(9 i , ,,;.'. ..TV..-,
the award for a project by the
National Congress of American
Indians to create an Embassy of
Tribal Nations, a permanent In
dian presence and working
space in Washington, D.C.
Allen is a former tribal chair
man and has been executive di
rector since 1982.
The annual award by the
families of Howard and Peter
Buffett recognizes indigenous
erty was ceded to the U.S. gov
ernment in 1855 for hunting
and fishing rights. That land is
now under private, non-Native
American ownership.
Makah Forestry Enterprises
recently completed a more than
$6 million land deal with Cas
cade Timberlands LLC, which
Dec. 21 -6 p.m.
performance
Dec. 23 - 6 p.m.
performance
Dec. 25-5 p.m.
dinner, 6 p.m.
performance
dozen lawmakers, Republicans
and Democrats, collected dona
tions from Abramoff's tribal
clients and firm around the time
they wrote letters to the Bush
administration or Congress fa
vorable to the tribes.
Congressional ethics rules
require lawmakers to avoid
even the appearance of a con
flict of interest in performing
official duties and accepting
political money. The Justice
Department is investigating
whether Abramoff, already
charged with fraud, won any
undue influence through dona
tions and favors.
Dorgan on Monday sharply
criticized the AP for reporting
last week that he collected
$20,000 from Abramoff's firm
and tribes in the period when
he wrote a letter urging the Sen
ate Appropriations Committee
to fund a school construction
program that Abramoff's clients
and other tribes wanted.
The senator said he long sup
ported the program, and the let
ter and donations had no con
nection. And he asserted that he
never took any action or re
ceived any campaign help that
knowingly involved Abramoff.
Dorgan, however, benefited
from the very arena skybox that
has become a symbol of
Abramoff's controversial ef
forts to win Washington influ
ence, records show.
The Choctaw tribe, an
Abramoff client that was a pri
mary focus of the Senate hear
leadership that improves social,
economic, political or environ
mental conditions.
Allen has served on the Af
filiated Tribes of Northwest
Indians and the Northwest In
dian Fisheries Commission.
From 1990 to 1996 he was
chairman of the National Indian
Policy Center at George Wash
ington University.
away in treaty
will return to the tribe 3,811
acres of timber land, expand
ing its land base by 1 1 percent.
"The land was important to
the tribe," said Meri Parker,
chief operating officer of
Makah Forestry. "So, too, was
our right to fish and hunt in our
usual and accustomed places."
ings, sponsored a fundraiser
March 28, 2001, for Dorgan's
political group, the Great Plains
Leadership Fund. The event
treated Dorgan and his donors
to a bird's-eye view of a profes
sional hockey game from a
skybox Abramoff leased in
Washington's MCI Center, while
lobbyists got the chance to bend
his ear.
Dorgan knew the fundraiser
was sponsored by the Choctaw
and that two Abramoff lobby
ists attended, but at the time he
didn't know they were con
nected to Abramoff, his spokes
man said. "He was told the
skybox was the Choctaws,"
Barry Piatt said.
Dorgan didn't reimburse the
tribe, instead reporting the event
as an "in-kind" $1,800 tribal
contribution without specifying
it involved the skybox.
Piatt said reporting it that way
was legal and normal. The sena
tor reimbursed the tribe $1,800
for the skybox earlier this year
when he learned from reports
that it was connected to
Abramoff, Piatt said.
Documents the Senate re
leased show Abramoff charged
the Choctaw $223,679 to under
write use of the skybox in 2001,
the year of Dorgan's fundraiser,
even though the tribe "very
rarely" used it. Dorgan has de
nounced the fees as outrageous.
Dorgan and his staff met
several times with Abramoff's
lobbying team, according to the
lobbying firm's billing records.
KftE
Why Wait 6 to 8
For
Archaeologists dig
into golf course
NEW ULM, Minn. (AP) -Archaeologist
Doug George
knelt beside a foot-deep ex
cavation unit at Fort Ridgcly
and splayed his team's recent
findings in a dustpan - nails
and bits of glass.
To an outsider, the frag
ments found inches below the
surface seem like rubbish. To
George and fellow archaeolo
gists LcRoy Gonsior and
Dave Radford of the Minne
sota Historical Society, the
pieces tell a story about the
stables that once stood on the
grounds - where Dakota In
dians sought shelter during an
1 862 battle. White men in the
fort shot a cannon at the
stables and burned them to
the ground.
The excavated pieces are
clues to such events. The frag
ments of glass told the men
the stables had windows,
which they hadn't known be
fore. Because of the impor
tance of piecing together the
historical puzzle, each and
every fragment will be
cleaned, catalogued and even
tually stored by the historical
society.
"We're managing to pre
serve what we, as humans,
did in the past," said George,
the project director.
George, Gonsior and
Radford have been all over
the Fort Ridgely grounds,
seven miles south of Fairfax,
rod
Your Refund?
to m a?) m mm
Bring In Your Completed
Tax Return And Let Us
E-File If Today!!!
Refund Checks Cashed
Open Saturday
475-1508
since May mapping historic
areas and finding six new ar
chaeological sites with artifacts
in an effort to study the im
pact of the upcoming golf
course rehabilitation project.
Their findings are helping to
draw the boundaries of the
project, as not to encroach on
burial grounds and other ar
eas of historical significance.
The men will quit for the
season when the ground
freezes and finish their work
in spring 2006, when
groundbreaking is to begin.
The nine holes of the Fort
Ridgely golf course originally
were built by local residents
in 1927, when few state regu
lations stood in the way of al
tering historic grounds. Now
the site is protected - as Fort
Ridgely I listoric District and
is on the National Register of
I listoric Places.
Gonsior said the original
golf course didn't disrupt
many artifacts, as the build
ers didn't dig too deeply.
"The sites are in better con
dition than I thought they'd
be," Radford said.
Thousands of years of In
dian artifacts lie below the sur
face of the Fort Ridgely area.
George, Gonsior and Radford
found new sites with artifacts,
such as pottery and tools, dat
ing back to the Oneota Cul
ture, 1,100 to 1,600 A.D.
Burial mounds dot the landscape.
irToe . ..
I REFUND
in
Weeks
z
MONEY ORDERS - TRANSFERS - CASH
MCM - OSCAR BUILDING 378 SW 5th St.
Admission: One can of soup (for the needy).