Wampum has been detailing the greater significance of the Abramoff scandal, tying it to the decade-old disgrace of the Cobell affair. Elouise Cobell is a Blackfoot banker who brought a class action suit against the Dept. of Interior for a century-plus of mismanagement of trust funds owed Indians for the use of tribal lands. By her reckoning, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) owes Indian peoples over $150 billion. The ruling in Cobell v. Norton held that because many of the documents needed to do a full accounting at the BIA had been destroyed (many at the order of Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton), it would be necessary to audit the companies that had profited from the use of tribal lands — mostly timber, mining, and oil companies. In the meantime, the BIA has been essentially mothballed, it’s already small budget going primarily to legal costs and accounting fees.

Which is how I indirectly ran into the Cobell affair. Soon after I arrived in Iowa to do research on the Meskwaki Settlement, the tribal council was overthrown following its refusal to recognize a recall election. Not much was different when I stopped in to the tribal offices to visit the tribal historian, John Buffalo — the only outward sign that anything was happening was a handful of men sitting around a campfire burning just outside the main entrance. Buffalo filled me in on what was going on, telling me that the supporters of the new council were occupying the building until they could get a ruling from the BIA recognizing the recall and authorizing a new election. According to the news, the occupiers were armed, with rifle-wielding Meskwaki prowling the rooftop, but in my visits, I never saw anyone with a gun, and I was never questioned or even given a second glance as I entered and left the building.

That recognition was a long time coming. The BIA had been shuttered and was unable to respond — even their website was down (and still is). The Meskwaki went before a state court, only to be told that their case was out its jurisdiction and referred back to the BIA. Meanwhile, the bank that handles Meskwaki funds had to make a decision — who would it recognize as authorized account holders? More to the point, whose signature would be needed on tribal payroll checks?

This last was no small issue: the Meskwaki Hotel and Casino is a major employer in the area, with hundreds of workers. When the bank froze tribal accounts pending resolution of the legitimacy struggle, those workers could no longer be paid. At this point, the National Indian Gaming Commision jumped into the fray, declaring that the new council could not operate the casino and therefore the casino would have to be shut down. Now not only were the casino’s employees out of work, but the tribe members’ annuities were cut off as well. It would be a year before the severely understaffed and underfunded BIA could mediate the dispute, during which the casino remained dark.

Ultimately the recall election was recognized as valid and new elections were held, which returned the occupying council to office with a large majority. The repercussions of the case are still being felt, as the ousted council sues the BIA for interfering and the tribe considers its options in relation to the gaming commission (which is not legally empowered to make decisions on tribal constitutional matters), but by and large the community is recovering. Had the BIA been able to exercise its mandate, however, it is doubtful things would have gotten so out of hand: tribal funds would have remained liquid, the casino would have stayed open, and the Meskwaki and non-Meskwaki in the area that rely on the casino either directly or indirectly for income would have been able to avoid the hardships that the closing entailed.

With millions of dollars on the line and many people left without or with drastically reduced incomes, it probably is not surprising that the occupying council turned to outside experts for help in securing funds from the federal government. And it also is not surprising that they turned to Abramoff’s firm, which expressly catered to Indian gaming interests and which was known for its ability to get things done in Washington. Between 2003 and mid-year 2005, when Abramoff’s firm came under fire, they paid well over a million dollars to Abramoff’s firm. During this time, they also made donations to the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), a group founded by Gail Norton and Grover Norquist, at the instruction of Abramoff’s firm.

This is where things get complicated, and where Wampum’s work becomes relevant. CREA is one of the major players in Norton’s efforts to hold off and ultimately avoid entirely the auditing of corporations that have profited from the use of Indian lands. As with all Righty advocate groups, CREA’s mission has nothing to do with environmental advocacy; it is dedicated to the deregulation of environmental affairs and is backed primarily by oil, and to a lesser degree timber and mining, interests. Which are, of course, the same companies that stand to lose from an audit of Indian land use profits.

The Meskwaki weren’t alone among Indians asked to give to CREA; donations from the Saginaw Chippewa, Tigua, and Coushatta were also solicited, bringing the total to $300,000. $300,000 given by Indians to a group that lobbies Congress to pass a law exempting corporations from an audit intended to reimburse Indians for funds stolen from them by CREA’s other backers. And their lobbying has paid off: in2003 Congress inserted riders into the “untouchable” Iraq appropriations bill to delay the court-ordered investigation, and have also cut investigators’ salaries and allowed Norton to control the payments to outside investigators and lawyers hired to process the case.

Abramoff’s contempt for his Indian clients is well-documented — in emails he referred to them as “monkeys”, “troglodytes”, and “morons” — but more and more it looks like the cause he was advancing was not just to line his pockets, nor even just to help protect Republican backers in the oil, mining, and timber industries, but rather an all-out attack on Indian sovereignty. Wampum has tracked down several ties linking oil interests to attacks on sovereignty, such as the petroleum associations backing Oklahoma-based One Nation United. Big business in general supports the attack, though it is often couched in moral arguments about the “right” of Indians to become “full” Americans, as in this editorial from the Wall Street Journal. Ironically, the few tribes that have profited from gaming — gaming made legal by their exemption from many regulations due to their sovereign status — have helped fuel this attack, making it appear to those unfamiliar with Indian affairs that a) sovereignty only serves to promote the morally questionable and seemingly “un-Indian” operation of casinos , and b) that anyone who can run a profitable casino is suitably assimilated and no longer needs or deserves the “special privileges” that sovereignty provides. But these are just the way the issue gets covered in the media; behind the scenes, the real reason for opposing Indian sovereignty is that it restricts access to Indian lands — and the oil, mineral, and timber on and under them. Abramoff’s contempt was not restricted to a little name-calling, or even to his misrepresentation to Indians who had hired him assuming he was going to help them advance their causes; in essence, Abramoff and his peers both in Congress and the business world are working to undermine the last vestige of autonomy Indian peoples possess.

And lest you think that Indian peoples are the only ones who are affected by the Abramoff scandal, consider this: all estimates suggest the amount to be repaid under the terms of Cobell v. Norton is in the neighborhood of $100 billion dollars (give or take $50 billion). Norton, CREA, and Abramoff are not working to prevent this repayment — they’re working to protect the corporations who have profited from the mismanagement from having to pay it back. So guess who’s going to be stuck with that bill?

Now, why would Grover “I want a government small enough so I can drown it in a bathtub” Nordquist’s group be working towards forcing the government into a $100 billion-plus payout? Honestly, I can’t imagine…