The Case
Cobell v. Babbitt was filed] on June 10, 1996. The named plaintiffs are Elouise Cobell, Earl Old Person, Mildred Cleghorn, Thomas Maulson and James Louis Larose. The defendants are the United States Department of the Interior and the United States Department of the Treasury. According to Cobell, "the case has revealed mismanagement, ineptness, dishonesty, and delay of federal officials." Since inception the Indian plaintiff class has been represented by attorneys Dennis M. Gingold, Thaddeus Holt and attorneys from the Native American Rights Fund, including Keith Harper and John Echohawk. The Department of the Interior was represented first by Bruce Babbitt, then Gale Norton, Dirk Kempthorne, and finally Ken Salazar.
The case was assigned to Judge Royce Lamberth, who eventually became a harsh critic of Interior in a series of sharply worded opinions.
Due to a court order (at the request of the plaintiffs) in the litigation, portions of Interior's website, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), were shut down beginning in December 2001. BIA and other Interior bureaus and offices were reconnected to the Internet following a May 14, 2008, order of the D.C. District Court.
Read more about this topic: Cobell V. Salazar
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