Official blames firing on Calif. tribe

Don Thompson

Tuesday, May 28, 2002 | 9:29 a.m.

SACRAMENTO -- The No. 2 official at the Bureau of Indian Affairs says he was fired due to the political influence of a tiny California Indian tribe that wants to build a $150 million casino near Sacramento.

The three-member tribe counters that it was Wayne Smith who acted wrongly, by arranging a meeting with a former business partner who allegedly promised he could solve the Buena Vista tribe's problems at the BIA in exchange for $25,000 a month and a negotiated percentage of the casino's projected gross venues.

Smith, the U.S. Department of Interior's deputy assistant secretary for Indian affairs, was fired Friday amid charges of influence-peddling that now reach to the White House itself.

Smith sought an investigation by the FBI and Interior Department's inspector general this spring amid allegations that he arranged meetings with two West Coast tribes for his friend and former business partner, Philip Bersinger.

Smith alleged that politically connected backers of the Buena Vista Me-Wuk tribe were upset that he did not immediately reverse the BIA's initial ruling handing control of the tribe to a blood descendant who opposes the $150 million casino.

That decision endangers the more than $10 million that Cascade Entertainment of Sacramento has already invested in the tribe's effort to get permission to build the casino.

In a May 16 letter, Smith complained to a senior Interior Department official that the White House was making "highly inappropriate" calls urging him to reverse the decision. He was soon placed on administrative leave, then fired, effective Tuesday.

On Friday Smith said he was seeking protection under federal whistle-blower laws designed to protect workers who speak out.

And he asked the U.S. Attorney's office in the District of Columbia to investigate what his attorney, Nancy Luque, alleged was "an improper use of influence by the White House and those connected to Republican politics and reprisals against Mr. Smith for reporting that influence."

White House and Interior Department spokesmen denied the claims.

The tribe contends it was Smith who set the stage for influence peddling by Bersinger.

Tribal representatives said Smith arranged to bring Bersinger to a meeting weeks after the BIA had ruled regarding the tribe's leadership. A few weeks after that, Bersinger allegedly made his offer to a tribal attorney, touting his access and influence to Interior and Indian Affairs because of his relationship with Smith.

The tribe since has cooperated fully with both the FBI and Interior Department investigations, said Buena Vista spokeswoman Jean Munoz.

She declined further comment Friday but previously denied that the tribe, its attorneys, or the Republican lobbyists it's hired in Washington, D.C., have tried to undermine Smith. She accused Smith of trying to make the tribe a "scapegoat" to draw attention from his own problems.

Smith, 52, a descendent of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux in South Dakota, was named to the BIA's No. 2 post in October. He was one of several top Interior officials who joined the Bush administration after working for former Republican California Attorney General Dan Lungren, who left office in early 1999.

After serving as Lungren's acting chief of staff, Smith went into business with Bersinger, who also had worked for Lungren's Department of Justice on contract.

In addition to the Buena Vista tribe's claims, a member of the Columbia River basin's Chinooks, Linda Amelia, said Bersinger called her within a couple weeks after she gave Smith her business card, offering to use his influence with Smith for $1,000 a month.

When she asked Bersinger how he got her name "his answer was 'You gave your card to Mr. Smith, didn't you?' He implied he got it from Mr. Smith," she said.

Smith denied arranging either meeting, and said he wrote a letter to Bersinger telling him the solicitations were inappropriate.

Bersinger's attorney, Matthew Jacobs, said he's confident his client broke no laws. He acknowledged Bersinger sent solicitation letters to the Chinooks and California Valley Miwoks, but backed Smith's contention that a third letter -- this one to the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana -- was "totally fictitious."

"There's reason to doubt much of the information that's been circulated around," Jacobs said.

Bersinger has not personally responded to repeated telephone messages left by the Associated Press for weeks. He previously told Time magazine he did not have Smith's permission to use his name, but added that he may have told Smith he was soliciting tribes. "I was trying to get business," he told the magazine.

A third tribe, the California Valley Miwoks, had asked Interior Secretary Gale Norton to remove Smith from considering issues they have pending before the Indian bureau, and filed a federal suit in Sacramento last week alleging they couldn't get a fair hearing with Smith in charge.

Miwok spokesman Tiger Paulk said the tribe turned down Bersinger's offer to use his influence with Smith for $5,000 a month. The tribe feels vindicated with Smith gone, Paulk said.

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