Judge Threatens Babbitt, Rubin WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge is threatening to hold Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in contempt for the government's delay in producing records of Indian trust funds. The Interior and Treasury departments are being sued over the mishandling of 300,000 Indian accounts worth an estimated $500 million. Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs was ordered two years ago to turn over statements, checks and other documents on accounts held by five Indians who are the lead plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit. So far, only a small amount of the documents have been produced. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who has frequently clashed with the Clinton administration, last week set a contempt hearing for Babbitt and Rubin for Jan. 11. ``They've meddled with the wrong person here as far as stonewalling and ignoring his orders,'' an attorney for the Indians, Robert Peregoy, said Wednesday. In a separate case, Lamberth on Tuesday accused Commerce Department officials of illegally destroying evidence in connection with charges that the agency sold slots on trade missions for donations to Democratic candidates. He's the same judge who earlier fined the administration $286,000 for making inaccurate statements about the makeup of its health care task force. At a Dec. 15 hearing in the Indian case, government lawyers gave him a variety of reasons for failing to turn over the records, including possible viral contamination of two storage facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and rodent infestation at another site. The government hopes to have the material by the hearing next month, said Ed Cohen, an Interior Department lawyer. ``The plaintiffs have been aggressive in seeking records. We're doing the best we can in producing them. We're doing this all at the same time that we're trying to fix the system,'' he said. The records that have been turned over have raised more questions about the accounts. Of 67 checks issued by the government, only 11 had been endorsed by the account holder, Peregoy said. The records also indicate one of the plaintiffs was not awarded her portion of her deceased father's land until more than 15 years after he died, according to auditors hired by the plaintiffs. The 300,000 accounts belong to individual Indians who receive royalties and other income from their land. As much as $1 million has flowed through some of the accounts in a single year, while others receive only a few dollars.
