Silent Witness
Seidel, Samuel
Silent Witness Senate investigators never called the one man who could clear up the Babbitt case BY SAMUEL SEIDEL WHEN THE SENATE GOVERNmental Affairs Committee called Secretary of the...
...Compounding the appearance of misdeeds, in the July 14,1995-entry in the day planner of Patrick OConnor, Senate investigators had discovered the notation: “[Discussion] re necessity to follow up with Harold Ickes . . . outlining fund-raising strategies...
...Although the land was some 100 miles from their respective reservations, three tribes of Wisconsin Chippewa Indians were seeking to acquire the facility and turn it into a gambling casino...
...Nonetheless, Skibine was without doubt the key figure in this little drama-as Babbitt made clear in his testimony...
...Yes...
...Section 20 of the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act...
...He sought out his former classmate and asked for a quick meeting with the secretary...
...Of course, Senate investigators are seasoned professionals, and they may have felt that such a direct line of inquiry was too obvious to pursue...
...Allied against the petition was a group of five rival tribes that already operated gaming facilities in the region...
...For their part, the Chippewa hired an equally big gun, lobbylst Paul Eckstein, a former Harvard Law chum of Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s...
...On reflection, I probably said that Mr...
...Robert Bennett’s side of things when he claimed to be having “a hard time believing a pure and chaste decision was made...
...Of course, not everyone was in favor of the new casino...
...For all of the arduous testimony the committee had sat through in the preceding months, for all of the legions of White House lawyers and Democratic campaign donors who had been paraded before the dais, no one set of circumstances reeked so thoroughly of campaign contributions buying political influence as the Babbitt case...
...It also sheds light on why Skibine’s testimony was of absolutely no interest to Republican investigators...
...Forget Babbitt’s testimony...
...Here was the break Republicans had been searching for...
...Paul, the planned casino was expected to draw patrons from all over the Twin Cities...
...In a sworn statement, Anderson told the majority staff that neither lobbyists, DNC officials, nor anyone from the White House had in any way affected his opinion on the Hudson issue...
...As it turns out, the opposing tribes weren’t the only people against the casino...
...Pete Domenici put it bluntly, “What is most plausible [is that Harold Ickes and the Democratic National Committee] were involved in pushing somebody not to issue this permit...
...When asked why they never deposed Skibine, the Senate committee insisted that, underlings aside, the buck stops with Babbitt...
...Ickes . . . wanted the department to decide the matter promptlyl’ Babbitt’s explanation, although not exactly a corroboration of Eckstein’s accusation, also wasn’t exactly a clear refutation...
...that Skibine had independently drafted the letter containing the BIA’s ruling-and that the BIA had approved only one Section-20 request since the law went into effect in 1988...
...During his testimony, Babbitt revealed that a career civil servant, George Skibine, had made the final recommendation regarding the controversial petition...
...Following months of miscues and failed attacks, they finally had a ripe target-a Cabinet secretary who had, to their minds, ordered a lower-level official to change a ruling to benefit large party donors...
...At the heart of the matter was a failing dog track located in the small town of Hudson, Wisc., right on the Minnesota border...
...Here at The Washington Monthly, however, we have no such qualms...
...But if they had truly been interested in determining how Babbitt was exercising his responsibility (i.e., if he had indeed simply ratified the independent decision of a department staffer), the Senate definitely needed Skibine’s testimony...
...and it sounded suspiciously like the political nondenials employed so frequently in congressional testimony...
...Of course, the committee’s “buck-stops” explanation also fails to take into account that the committee had, in fact, deposed Skibine’s superior, Michael Anderson...
...So we contacted Skibine in November and asked if he had been influenced in any way when submitting his recommendation on the Chippewa’s request...
...While O’Connor was busy arranging for his clients to make $230,000 worth of contributions to the DNC-donated sonietime after the ruling was made public-Eckstein was pushing for face time with his good buddy Babbitt.-On July 14, 199S, the day the decision memo was released by the BIA, Eckstein was at the Interior Department, urging officials to delay a decision on the Hudson track...
...Caught in a his-word-against-mine situation, Babbitt, as a political appointee, has a compelling interest in protecting the White House...
...Babbitt’s behavior looked pretty suspicious...
...Yet remarkably, the committee never bothered to contact Skibine...
...In his appearance before the committee, Babbitt offered an unimpressive defense...
...Just 30 miles outside Minneapolis-St...
...Although insisting that “[he] did not personally make the decision to deny the Hudson application, nor did [he] participate in department deliberations relating to the application,” the secretary did admit invoking Ickes’ name in the matter as a way to get Eckstein out of his hair and out of his office...
...That same day, the heads of the three tribes received a letter from the deputy assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, a political appointee by the name of Michael Anderson, informing them that BIA was refusing their request...
...Arguing that, because of its location, the Hudson site would prove much more profitable than the gaming facilities the tribes were currently operating on more remote tribal lands, the Chippewa convinced the regional BIA office to support their cause...
...Representing this group was lobbyist Patrick O’Connor, a former treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, and long-time fund-raiser for the party...
...Before they could start building, however, the Chippewa had to convince the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to take the land into a trusteeship for them, and then issue them a gaming permit as outlined under SAMUEL SEIDEL is an intern at The Washington Monthly...
...In his testimony before the Senate committee, Eckstein said he pressed the secretary for a delay in the matter, but that Babbitt demurred, confiding that he was under pressure to rule on the petition by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes...
...Silent Witness Senate investigators never called the one man who could clear up the Babbitt case BY SAMUEL SEIDEL WHEN THE SENATE GOVERNmental Affairs Committee called Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to testify in its campaign finance hearings this October, it looked as though Republicans might have at long last found a smoking gun in the Democratic fund-raising controversy...
...I do not recall exactly what was said...
...Bottom line: Skibine insists that his recommendation was made entirely on the merits-or lack thereof-of the tribes’ petition...
...With these two salient pieces of informationBabbitt’s words to Eckstein and OConnor’s note on his calendar-Democratic wrongdoing seemed more than probable...
...One doesn’t have to be a die-hard Republican to see GOP Sen...
...Had he been made aware at any time of potential contributions to the Democratic party based on his decision...
...Against [his] better judgment,” Babbitt said later, he acceded...
...But the committee didn’t have to take Babbitt’s word for it...
...By October 30,1997, GOP senators were looking to draw blood...
...His response: an unequivocal “No...
...Tommy Thompson and the Wisconsin and Minnesota delegations in Congress...
...And was he aware of potential contributions to the DNC by the group of tribes opposing the petition...
...Too bad the press and public seemed content to accept only the part of the story the Republicans fed them...
...On November 14, 1994, the bureau’s Minneapolis office sent a memo to the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs in Washington, recommending that the tribes be granted the land in trust...
...The committee’s line of inquiry was clear enough: Had Babbitt, on behalf of a major Democratic fundraiser, denied a 1994 petition by a group of Chippewa Indian tribes to launch a gaming operation in Western Wisconsin...
...Both the town of Hudson and the nearby community of Troy had come out apnst allowing gaming in the area, as had Wisconsin Republican Gov...
...If a smoking gun existed in this matter, Skibine held it...
...Considering how inconvenient Anderson’s statement would have proven for Republicans peddhg the BabbittIckes conspiracy theory, it’s no surprise that Anderson was never called before the committee-despite an appeal by the minority staff for his testimony...
...Babbitt recounted what transpired at his meeting with Eckstein this way: “ . . . I sought to terminate the meeting...
...Had the bureau’s final position concurred with his...
...the committee needed to ask Skibine-the guy who made the actual recommendation on the petition-whether he was influenced or pressured in any way...
...But what emerged from Babbitt’s testimony -and from the circumstances surrounding the committee’s handling of the issue-says as much about the politics of the hearings as about Bruce Babbitt’s guilt or innocence...
...It was based upon this recommendation that the deputy assistant secretary, Michael Anderson, had sent the Chippewa the letter of refusal...
Vol. 29 • December 1997 • No. 12
