Judge Rules in Cobell Litigation :(

After twelve long years of seemingly endless litigation, DC District Court Judge James Robertson finally gave a monetary amount to the betrayal of the Individual Indian Money account holders who have lost by most honest assessments billions and billions of dollars in mismanaged trust funds. The number that the Judge settled on was $455,600,000.00 - not even close to one billion dollars and a fraction of what the plaintiffs were seeking ($47 billion dollars). Once again the federales have screwed the Native people of this land, many of whom have died during the last twelve years of drawn-out litigation while the government kept delaying hearings, requesting postponements and otherwise attempting to wear the plaintiffs down and drain their meager resources so that they would settle for an amount far lower than what the government knew that they owed. Elouise Cobell (the lead plaintiff in this class action lawsuit), not unexpectedly, disagrees with the ruling:
"I am disappointed, to say the least," said Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation of Montana. "We believe we presented a strong, compelling case that individual Indian trust beneficiaries are entitled to much more than the government's admitted mismanagement of our trust monies over the past 120 years."

Once again the federal government has failed to live up to its legal obligations as trustee for the Native beneficiaries in whose best interest it promised to act, and it has been exonerated by the courts of the same lying, cheating system for its failures.

If you would like to read the ruling that settled on the paltry amount that the government owes the Native people of this land, please click here.

If you'd like to see the complete history of this case, please visit Indian Trust: Cobell v. Kemthorne.

If you would like to read an interview by Amy Goodman of Elouise Cobell - see: Federal Judge Rules US Government Owes Group of Native Americans $455 Million for Unpaid Royalties on Drilling for Oil and Gas.