WASHINGTON -- Interior Secretary Gale Norton acknowledged in court Wednesday
that a complete accounting of a trust fund handling $500 million a year in
royalties from Native-owned land is impossible because some documents have
been destroyed.

Norton's agency is attempting to determine exactly how much money Natives are
owed because of prior mismanagement of the fund, which was established more
than 100 years ago and is the subject of a class-action lawsuit by Natives.

"In general terms, trying to piece together all the information since 1887 is
going to be a very difficult job," Norton testified. "It will be blocked in
some cases because a particular piece of information has been destroyed."

In some cases, documents were not stored properly and they "crumbled with
age," she said. Norton was on the stand to defend herself against a contempt
of court allegation. She said her agency has tried to follow a judge's order
to fix management problems with the trust fund system.

Progress has been made, though more needs to be done, she said. "We have
tried to use appropriate standards and aspire to a high level of accounting
responsibility," Norton said. "I'm not sure if in every instance we have met
that standard."

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered Norton to testify and explain how
the Interior Department did not commit a fraud on the court by concealing the
failure of key Native trust fund accounting systems.

Although much of the alleged wrongdoing occurred during the tenure of her
predecessor, Bruce Babbitt, Norton and Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs
Neal A. McCaleb are on trial as the current officials in charge of the trust
fund.

Lamberth has expressed frustration with the Interior Department's approach to
the case, at one point calling Norton's handling of certain aspects "clearly
contemptuous," and advising her attorney to "throw yourself on the mercy of
the court."

He said at the outset of the contempt trial in December that he would give
government attorneys a chance to prove Norton should not be held in contempt,
largely to stave off a potential appeal. Now, after weeks of testimony, the
contempt trial is nearing its conclusion.

The top congressionally appointed trust official, Thomas Slonaker, has
testified that he did not have faith in the Interior Department's reform
efforts. In 1999, Lamberth held Babbitt and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin
in contempt and fined them $600,000 for failing to turn over documents in the
5-year-old class-action lawsuit brought by Native landowners.

Any fines imposed against Norton would be paid by the department, as were
those imposed against Babbitt and Rubin. The trust accounts came from an 1887
federal law that divided some reservation land into smaller plots for
individual Natives.

The federal government holds that land -- about 45 million acres -- in trust
for the Natives -- meaning it cannot be taxed or sold and the government must
approve any leases.

The lawsuit stems from a century of mismanaged mining, grazing and timber
royalties from the land. Money intended for Native beneficiaries was lost,
misappropriated, stolen or never collected, the government has acknowledged.

The Natives' attorneys claim the government owes 300,000 Native account
holders more than $10 billion. They want responsibility for the trust
stripped from Interior and assigned to a receiver outside the department.

Norton has proposed creating a new bureau within the department to manage the
money, although that plan has been met with stubborn resistance among Native
leaders.