Our friend Susan Bradford has the story on her Investigative Reports page:
Dennis Kequom campaigned for a seat on the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan’s Tribal Council on the platform of combating corruption. Many tribal leaders before him have made similar promises, but Kequom, who was elected Chairman, has been good on his word. Recently, the Kequom Council submitted a letter to Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), the Chair of the House Resources Committee, requesting that Congress investigate the legitimacy of tribe’s constitution, which was rewritten in 1986 to accommodate economic development on the reservation and alter qualifications for tribal membership.
The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe was formally established in 1937. The newly minted members – that is, the descendants of the Swan, Saginaw, and Black River Band of Chippewa Indians who populated the state over a century ago – appealed to the Indian Claims Commission for compensation for land the federal government had stripped from their ancestors.
The Original 39 have offered two plausible explanations for how the Tribal Council might have acquired the votes. Some Indians recall that random people were pulled off the street, many of whom were not Natives, and asked to support the new constitution through a show of hands. Others remember that a makeshift petition was circulated around the reservation. Once the tribal elite acquired the requisite number of signatures, tribal members said, the top portion of the petition was ripped off and replaced with a narrative alleging that the signatories endorsed it. Even though the petition received the appropriate number of signatures, Original 39 members point out that many who signed were not even qualified to participate in the vote. Once the BIA received the certification from the elites, the agency released $10 million in docket money to the Tribal Council.
The following year, a U.S. Supreme Court case, California v. the Cabazon Band of Indians, ruled that tribes could adopt any form of gambling allowed in the state in which they were federally recognized. In 1988, Sen. Ben Knighthorse Campbell (R-CO), Rep. Mo Udall, and Sen. John McCain sponsored the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), which established new governmental structures to regulate gaming on reservations across the country.
The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe was well on its way to establishing its lucrative Soaring Eagle Casino. However, as the Original 39 point out, the constitutional revision cleared the way for non-Indians to acquire tribal membership. These individuals have wielded an extraordinary amount of control on the Tribal Council and its finances ever since.
Undeterred, the Original 39 challenged the interlopers, who enjoyed the backing of the tribal gaming establishment and a number of influential legislators on Capitol Hill, including McCain. In an effort to secure their position as the undisputed leaders of the tribe, the elites proceeded to increase their own Native blood quantums while diluting the blood quantums of the genuine Indians.
4 comments:
The interlopers(counterfeiters) may finally realizing that they are not our representives, in the least!
If they would realize, yes, you can go to prison for quite a long time...the time to play ball!
If only they'd realized that their criminal lies are not going to keep going...they will cease to exist!
Enough playing kid games with kid gloves...put em up...put em up!
A person found to have enrolled on the basis of false information.
Evidence showing that the applicants who were not nor are they now eligible for tribal membership.
Base on substantial evidence as they failed to meet their burden of proof and establish that they were direct descendants of any individual whose names appears on an enumerated roll.
The entrance of these applicants, was based on substantial evidence on the record. Further, substantial new evidence demonstrates that the certification was clearly fraudulent.
Now, making false statements (18 U.S.C. 1001)(1) falsies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; (2)
makes any material false, fictitous, or fraudulent statement or representation; or (3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned.
Even constitutionally explicit Fifth Amendment privileges do not exonerate affirmative false statements.923 18 U.S.C.371, creates an offense "(i)more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States and to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any person.
Enough proof beyond a reason doubt and evidences to prove their falsehoods.
Here is an extension of the same law.
18 U.S.C. 1001
(Defendant) is charged with making a false statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of a government agency. It is against federal law to make a false statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of a government agency.
A list of no-no's.
First, that (defendant) knowingly made a material false statement;
Second, that (defendant) made the statement voluntarily and intentionally; and
Third, that (defendant) made the statement in a (e.g. U.S. Customs declaration).
A false statement is made "knowingly" if the defendant knew that it was false or demonstrated a reckless disregard for the truth with a conscious purpose to avoid learning the truth.
A statement is "material" if it has a natural tendency to influence or to be capable of influencing the decision of the decisionmaker to which it was addressed, regardless of whether the agency actually relied upon it.
A statement is "false" if it was untrue when made.
Your people MUST stand up and make their voices heard. We can give you a place here, or do you have your own website/twitter/facebook page we can link to?
I know of to cases where 2 sisters were dis-enrolled and 1 other sister was not all 3 had the same mother and father,another case the father was dis-enrolled and his son was not and the son only traces thru his dad,mother was white-Saginaw Chippewa Tibe council and enrollmend board are so CURRURT and it continues from council to council and it gets worse with each one,changing everything too fit thier agenda-one of these days the bia will grow some balls and step in,all of these changes should be voted on by the whole membership not just a setect few that would be the fair and right thing too do'PUT THEN WHO WANTS TO BE FAIR WHEN YOUR SO CORRUPT...
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