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Justice Probing Babbitt's Casino Decision
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Oct. 25) -- The Justice Department has opened a preliminary investigation into Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's rejection of three Wisconsin Indian tribes' application to open a new casino.
Questions have been raised as to whether the White House may have pressured Babbitt to kill the casino, which was opposed by three other Indian tribes that later contributed more than $270,000 to the Democratic Party.
The Senate Government Affairs committee, which is investigating campaign finance irregularities, has also been looking into the interior secretary's July 1995 decision to reject the casino permit.
As a Cabinet member, Babbitt is covered under the independent counsel law, which means that this preliminary 30-day probe could eventually lead to the appointment of an special prosecutor if the Justice Department finds evidence of possible criminal activity.
"We will be happy to cooperate with the Justice Department inquiry," said Babbitt spokesman Mike Gauldin. "We are more interested than anybody else in getting the full story of this out because there has been so much misinformation in the press."
Gauldin said the Justice Department has asked to interview two Interior Department staff members, and the department agreed to set up the sessions.
The inquiry centers around a plan by three bands of Wisconsin Chippewas to build a casino at a dog track in Hudson, Wisconsin, a site not on their reservations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is part of the Interior Department, and the tribes had to obtain a permit from Babbitt before developing the land as a casino.
Three other tribes which operate gambling enterprises -- the St. Croix Chippewa and Oneida of Wisconsin and the Shakopee Mdewankanton Sioux of Minnesota -- opposed the Hudson casino.
Babbitt rejected the project in July 1995, even though the regional office of the BIA recommended approving the license.
Gauldin says that Babbitt's decision was consistent with his past policy in similar situations.
"Since the secretary has been at the department, he has never allowed a tribe to acquire land for a casino off the reservation when the local community was opposed. And the local community in this case was ... opposed," Gauldin said.
But after Babbitt's decision, the three tribes who opposed the casino donated $270,000 to the Democrats. And the Associated Press reported this week that internal documents show that the White House contacted the Interior Department three times while the decision was pending.
In an October letter to the Senate committee, Babbitt admitted telling a lawyer for the Chippewa that then Deputy White House Chief of Staff Harold Ickes had pressed him to make a decision in this case.