FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 19, 2001 www.indiantrust.com SENIOR TRUST OFFICIAL VOUCHES FOR REPORT'S ACCURACY ON FAILURE OF $33 MILLION IIM COMPUTER SYSTEM Judge Wasn't Told by Interior That TAAMS Was Flunking Tests WASHINGTON, D.C. - A senior trust official, testifying on the eighth day of a contempt trial for Interior Secretary Gale Norton, said today that "with few exceptions" he found a court investigator's report to be an accurate rendition of Interior's failure to carry out a key element of court-ordered reform of the Individual Indian Monies (IIM) trust. The official, Thomas M. Thompson, testified that a report by Court Monitor Joseph S. Kieffer III on the severe problems of a prototype, $33 million trust data system and Interior's failure to inform U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth that the system was flunking field tests "largely supports the facts as I understood them." Thompson also said that senior Interior aides agreed at a Sept. 8, 1999 meeting that it was imperative Lamberth be informed that the system, the Trust Asset Accounting Management System (TAAMS), was a flop. He said he was shocked to learn a year and a half later, when he read Kieffer's report, that the judge had never been notified. The accuracy of Kieffer's five reports - which document Interior's evasion of Lamberth's Dec. 21, 1999 order to reform the IIM trust and provide 500,000 IIM trust beneficiaries with an accounting of their money - underscore the seriousness of contempt charges against Norton and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb. Kieffer's reports show that TAAMS still does not work and may never work, and that quarterly reports by Norton to the judge on TAAMS and other trust topics have been highly misleading. Thompson testified that he did not know why Lamberth was never informed that TAAMS was flunking user tests, and could not say who might have countermanded the recommendation by top Interior aides. "It may have been inadvertent or a bureaucratic blunder," he said. "Could it have been incompetence?" asked lead plaintiffs' attorney Dennis M. Gingold. "Yes," Thompson said. Asked by Gingold if it could have been a "snafu," Thompson replied, "It would have to have been extraordinary." The true state of TAAMS was important because it sharply contradicted trial testimony in the summer of 1999 by the TAAMS project manager, Dominic Nessi, that TAAMS was well on its way to success. One of Kieffer's conclusions is that Interior gave false testimony at the trial. Interior's inability to make TAAMS work, and its unwillingness to submit candid reports to the judge, continue to haunt the department. Thompson revealed today that title data for Indian-owned lands had been "corrupted" in field tests of the TAAMS system in Billings, Montana during May and June of this year. Lamberth immediately demanded that government attorneys inform him whether Norton had reported the incident in her 7th Quarterly Report to the court. Thompson's boss, Special Trustee Thomas Slonaker, refused to verify the accuracy of the 7th Quarterly Report when it was submitted to Lamberth on July 31. With Thompson still the only witness to appear in the contempt proceedings, Lamberth has made it clear he is looking for ways to speed up the trial, which have been slowed to a crawl by 200 pages of government objections to Kieffer's findings. Lamberth suggested today he might supplement trial testimony with depositions supervised by Special Master Alan Balaran, who would oversee deposition testimony regarding not only Norton and McCaleb but 37 other Interior and Justice Department officials and attorneys who the Indian plaintiffs want found in contempt. "If the government wants a complete record, we can give them a complete record," Lamberth said. #####