Exposing Abramoff's Playbook: Play #2

Here's part two of my blog series.  Part one is here.  While reading this one, consider Senator John McCain's most recent criticism of the NIGC, saying he "doesn’t believe the NIGC is doing enough to regulate the industry.”  He appears to have a point. Play #2—Seize the Palace.  Concurrent with the eruption of the Tribal leadership dispute, the bad guys immediately exert control over the Tribe’s casino and other cash-generating enterprises—by violent force if necessary.

The bad guys know that in a war of attrition, a war chest is required—and there is no deeper war chest than replenishing Indian casino coffers.  They seize the gaming money to pay themselves and to recruit an army of others. 

Recall the following emails from Abramoff to his colleagues:  "I want all their MONEY!!!" “We're charging these guys up the wazoo . . . Make sure you bill your hours like a demon.”  This is precisely the state of mind of the bad guy-lawyers, who are sure to extract an enormous retainer up front so that they get paid no matter what ultimately happens to the Tribe.

The bad guys then deny gaming per capita payments to their opponents to prevent them from accumulating any war chest of their own, while increasing those payments to other Tribal members to attract them as allies.  Per capita monies are especially leveraged to buy votes in Tribal Council elections, or recall or initiative drives.  All of this is done in disregard of any Tribal revenue allocation plan and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.  (See also "Tribal Per Capitas and Self-Termination.")

Because what the bad guys really know is that the National Indian Gaming Commission Chairman will largely sit on the sidelines until the inert BIA decision-making process finally runs its course, and that in the meantime the NIGC will not take any meaningful steps to shut down an illegal gaming operation or otherwise stem illegality.  Recall that in Bay Mills the states argued that the “Commission only rarely invokes its authority to enforce the law against Indian tribes.”  The states appear to be right.  As we also saw in Bay Mills, the entire U.S. Department of Justice—from local U.S. Attorneys and FBI Special Agents,  to everyone at Main Justice—sits idle too, despite its clear statutory criminal and civil authority to intervene.  Indian Country could use Phil Hogen and Tom Perrelli right about now.

All the while,  the bad guys run roughshod over the Tribe’s entire gaming operation.  This increasingly includes heavily armed “security” personnel surrounding the casino, paid with gaming monies and tasked to by any means necessary, prevent legitimate Tribal officials from resuming control over the casino.

Stay tuned for further blogs exposing several other schemes from Abramoff's Playbook.

Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.

Exposing Abramoff’s Playbook: Play #1

As the number of cash-fueled tribal civil wars in Indian Country only increases--here and here are two illustrative headlines in just this past week--I reprise my exposition of "Abramoff's Playbook" from earlier this summer through a series of blogs. ("Exposing Abramoff's Playbook" will also soon re-run in its entirety, via Indian Country Today Media Network.)

"We do a recall, election and take over.  Let's discuss." – Jack Abramoff, February 14, 2002

In professional sports “the playbook is a sacred hardbound diary of trust.  It's an accumulation of decades' worth of knowledge, tweaked and perfected, sectioned off by scribbles and colored tabs.”

Looming large in Indian Country right now, there’s another kind of playbook; a dark one.  The plays were originally designed by Jack Abramoff during his infamous stint at Ysleta Del Sur, Coushatta and Saginaw Chippewa.  For the last two decades, Casino Jack’s playbook has been enhanced with the knowledge of other lawyers, lobbyists and executives, especially those in the Indian gaming industry.   Even Native lawyers are now picking up and deploying the playbook. 

The plays are shrewdly designed to divide and conquer Tribal Councils and communities from within, while federal trustees stand on the sidelines.  The first few plays are as scripted as an NFL team’s opening drive.

Play #1—Create a Tribal Leadership Dispute.  Whether through “recall, election and takeover,” or some form of Tribal Chairman fiat or General Council coup d’état and resulting insurrection, the Abramoffs of the world—the bad guys—know that if Tribal governmental factions can be created, it will paralyze all interested parties, including all levels of federal government, tribal and state law enforcement, and financial institutions. In turn, those pivotal players will not immediately know who to treat as the “rightful Tribal Council” for purposes of government-to-government relations, law and order, or financial security.

The bad guys will begin their takeover by setting their sights on weak persons or institutions in the Tribe, and then exploiting those weaknesses to drive a deep wedge into the heart of the community.  They will tap, even bribe, a weak Chairman, or a group of dissident members, or notoriously unethical Tribal officers or employees.  P.L. 280 jurisdictions are particularly vulnerable to such organized crime given perennial inter-agency law enforcement indecision and inaction.

In the face of a takeover, the United States must “recognize the last undisputed officials” as tribal officials—meaning the officials in office immediately before the leadership dispute was manufactured—for government-to-government purposes, until the dispute can be settled pursuant to tribal law and procedure.  Alturas Indian Rancheria v. Acting Pacific Regional Director, 54 IBIA 1, 8 (2011).  But the bad guys know that the Bureau of Indian Affairs will be slow to make that declaration.

The bad guys also know that if the BIA does ever declare the Tribe’s last undisputed officials as rightful leadership, they can immediately appeal any decision that goes against them and stay its effect for up to three years, given the current backlog at the Interior Board of Indian Appeals.  25 C.F.R. 2.6(b).  While the appeal lumbers along, and the bad guys declare that the decision has no effect pending that appeal, they mount a concerted war of attrition against anybody who stands in their way.

Stay tuned for more blogs exposing several other schemes from Abramoff's Playbook.

Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.

Blood Money: Bank of America & the Redskins

Bank of America is the "exclusive sponsor" of the Washington Redskins.  Bank of America is also an exclusive lender--in fact, the leading lender--the $28 billion Indian gaming industry.

BofA has paid millions of dollars to Dan Snyder to serve as the "Official Bank of the Washington Redskins."  BofA has received many millions more from Indian Country in gaming deals. BofA is so very content to have it both ways, remaining on the sidelines of the Redskins mascot debate.

Indian Country now balks at Nike and FedEx's Redskins sponsorships. But the hundreds of tribes that bank with BofA, and that collectively tout billions of dollars in purchasing power, speak little of BofA's own use of the Redskins mascot or unholy alliance with Dan Snyder.

Simply put, cash is king.  Indeed, while Indian Country scorns Snyder's Original Americans Foundation and rejects his blood money, tribes accept donations from Nike's N7 Fund and tribal casinos continue to do mega business with BofA.  It's all shades of grey, or green.

This status quo will prevail until the money fleets from BofA, Nike and FedEx, the NFL, and in turn Dan Snyder. Maybe Indian gaming money will be the first to go.  Maybe not.  But only when the money goes, will the name change.

Gabriel “Gabe” Galanda is the Managing Partner at Galanda Broadman. He is a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes. Gabe can be reached at 206.300.7801 or gabe@galandabroadman.com.