Gale Norton told: Reverse (tribe) recognition or be fired

[nosmokes]

pretty typicalGOPosse tactics. the more it sees sunlight the more it stinks.
--###--

original-indian country today
Gale Norton told: Reverse recognition or be fired

Posted: January 26, 2007
by: Gale Courey Toensing / Indian Country Today

WASHINGTON - Two months after the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation received federal recognition in 2004, then-Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton attended a meeting at which a powerful congressman threatened to use his influence at the White House to get her fired if she did not reverse the tribe's federal status, court documents have revealed.

The congressman was Republican Frank Wolf of Virginia, who is known in Indian country as no friend of the nations.

There were plenty of witnesses to the politically-charged threat, which took place at a meeting in late March 2004 at Connecticut Republican Rep. Christopher Shays' office. Attending were other Connecticut congressmen, who themselves had vociferously lobbied Interior and the White House against the Schaghticokes' federal recognition and, in what may reflect a case of collective projection, had accused the BIA of political influence and corruption in recognizing the tribe.

''During that meeting, Representative Frank Wolf, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee and one of the principal opponents of Indian gaming in Congress, threatened to go the President to have Secretary Norton removed from her job if she did not reverse the Tribe's Positive Final Determination,'' attorneys for the tribe wrote in a Jan. 12 brief for the tribe's appeal of the BIA's unprecedented reversal of its own previous decision.

The appeal is filed in Connecticut federal court and names the Secretary of Interior (now Dirk Kempthorne), Interior, Associate Deputy Secretary James Cason, the BIA, the Office of Federal Acknowledgement and the Interior Board of Indian Appeals as defendants. It asks the court to restore the tribe's federal acknowledgement, citing violations of due process and improper political influence by Connecticut politicians and their surrogates, including an anti-Indian group called Town Action to Save Kent, and its White House-connected lobbyist, Barbour Griffith & Rogers.

Norton tried to downplay Wolf's threat, the attorneys said, but noted that ''she returned to the Department and told her underlings about it - an action that ensured, if nothing else, that others within the Department became aware of Rep. Wolf's disapproval of the Tribe's recognition and his threat to pursue it if not reversed.''

Norton's revelation emerged in early January when she and Cason were questioned under oath by the tribe's attorneys.

As a result of their testimony, attorneys have asked the court to allow questioning of TASK and BGR, and to review documents Norton said she took home with her when she left Interior last March. Government lawyers stopped the tribal attorneys from seeing the documents.

Norton said she was actively involved in the tribe's Final Determination, which she approved in January 2004. She also stood by the BIA's decision to use state recognition in the process.
~snip~
.
.
.
complete article here

[Reterr]

1. Gale Norton is a horrible person.nt

[Judi Lynn]

2. Appalling. How many Republicans have been involved in selling out

the Native Americans just during _Bush's stolen reign?

If it helps to know what Rep. Frank Wolf looks like, here's his wretched face. It always helps me to be able to visualize the monsters:
http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/Pictures/Persons/007508/007508-188868.jpg http://ejm.lsc.gov/EJMIssue8/images/[e-mail]
Thanks for posting this information, nosmokes.

[partylessinOhio]

3. More dirt floating to the surface:

There were plenty of witnesses to the politically-charged threat, which took place at a meeting in late March 2004 at Connecticut Republican Rep. Christopher Shays' office.

I have always felt Chris Shays was a slimeball.