Mr. Mark J. Langer 
Clerk, United States Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia Circuit 
United States Courthouse 
Room 5423 
Third & Constitution Avenue, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20001 
Re: Cobell v. Norton, No. 03-5288 
Dear Mr. Langer: 
Oral argument on the above-captioned petition for mandamus is scheduled for April 8, 
2004, before Chief Judge Ginsburg and Circuit Judges Randolph and Henderson. 
The petition seeks the disqualification of Special Master Alan Balaran in Cobell v. 
Norton, No. 96-1285 (D.D.C.). Pursuant to FRAP 28(j), we write to inform the Court that 
Special Master Balaran has resigned from the case, effective April.5, 2004. In our view, the 
resignation raises significant new issues that warrant taking the petition off the April 8, 2004 
argument calendar. We will submit our position on those issues within fourteen days. 
We are attaching the district court’s April 6, 2004 order accepting the Special Master’s 
resignation; the April 5,2004 letter of resignation; and the district court’s separate order of April 
6, 2004 directing defendants to pay fees, including $65,284.62 in fees to Douglas B. Huron, who 
represented the Special Master in opposing the government’s motion for disqualification and 
petition for mandamus. 
Please distribute copies of this letter, with the attachments, to the members of the panel 
assigned to the case. Thank you for your assistance. 
U.S. Department of Justice 
Civil Division, Appellate Staff 
601 “D” Street, N.W., Rm: 9108 
Washington, D.C. 20530 
April 6, 2004 
514-5089 
5 14-8 15 1 
Tel: 
Fax: cc: Hon. Royce C. Lamberth 
Douglas B. Huron 
Elliott H. Levitas 
Dennis Marc Gingold 
Keith M. Harper 
Earl Old Person 
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Respectfully submitted, 
PETER D. KEISLER 
Assistant Attorney General 
GREGORY G. KATSAS 
Deputy Assistant Attorney General 
r + 
MARK B. STERN 
THOMAS M. BONDY 
ROBERTE.KOPP ;u 
b - = ALISA B. KLEIN 
Attorneys, Appellate Staff ELOUlSE PEPION COBELL, & d., 
V. 
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 
Plaintiffs, 
Civil Action. Number 916-1285 (RCL) 
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) GALE A. NORTON, Secretary sf the 
Interior, & d., 
SO ORDERED. 
Date: April 6,2004 
With profound regret the Court accepts the resignation of Alan L. Balaran as Special 
Master. His letter of resignation, attached hereto, shall be filed in the record of this case. 
ORDER 
Ro C.Lam erth 
United States District Judge 
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Defendants. 
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- ?i&e,/& 
1 LAW OFRCE 
1717 P E N ” I A Am., N.W ALAN L. BALARAN, P.L.L.C. 
THIRTEENTH FLOOR ADMITI’FE IN DC AND MD 
WASHINGTON, D.C 20006 
TELEPHONE (202) 466-5010 
PAX (202) 986-8477 
E - U abaluao@erols.com 
HAND DELIVERED 
April 5,2004 
Honorable Royce C. Lamberth 
United States District Court for the District of Columbia 
333 Constitution Avenue, NW 
Washington, DC 20001 
Re: Cobell v. Norton, No. 96-1285 
Dear Judge Lamberth: 
ECE! 
A FF! 5 2804 
vQrE : A&TBgsT&$ 
I hereby tender my resignation as Special Master in the Cobell case, ef&ctwe fhe 
CHAtdSSERS GF 
This is an extraordinarily important case. I have been privileged to work on it. 
For the past several months, however, my efforts have been undermined by a series of 
motions lodged by the Department of the Tntenor - one of Cobell’s two co-defendants 
It is evident Interior will conhue filing such motions, preventing the case from 
moving forward. The agency’s motivation is clear. In recent months, I have reported 
evidence of a practice - abetted by Interior - of energy companies routinely paying 
individual Indians much less than they pay non-hndians for oil and gas pipeline easements 
across the Southwest. I also have uncovered evidence that Interior fails to diligently 
monitor oil and gas leasing activities on individual Indian lands. To prevent fixither 
investigation into these matters, hterior seeks my removal from the Cobell case. 
The timing of Interior’s efforts to disqualify me is not coincidental. Interior filed 
its May 2003 disqualification motion shortly after I found the agency withheld salient 
data from its quarterly reports to the Court. The agency accused me of improperly 
retailzing the services of a former Interior contractor to obtain information germane to 
that investigation. You Eound this accusation frivolous, suggesting it was Interior that 
acted improperly by impeding my investigation and that Interior had an ulterior motive 
for seeking my removal. You were correct. 
]interior’s disqualification attempts stemmed fiom events that took place several 
months slier, beginning with my March 6, 2003 visit to the Office of Appraisal 
close of business on. April 5,2004. 
- seeking my disqualification. Honorable Royce C. Lamberth 
April 5,2004 
Page 2 of 3 
Services of the Navajo Regional Office in Gallup, New Mexico. There, iri the presence 
of the Department of Justice and Interior counsel, the Chief Appraiser admitted that he 
appraised oil and gas easements running across individual Indian lands for amounts 
considerably less than the appraised value of identical interests held by non-Indians. The 
Chief Appraiser also admitted destroying evidence of his 20-year practice of doing so. 
Interior has never denied that the Chief Appraiser destroyed valuable trust information or 
that energy companies pay individual Indians a fraction of what they pay similarly 
situated non-hdians as a result of these inadequate appraisals. (Nor has the agency taken 
any disciplinary action against the Chief Appraiser. To the contrary, it has gone to great 
lengths to protect him by retaining the services of two attorneys to defend his conduct 
during a recent deposition.) 
On August 20,2003, I issued a report chronicling my findings. This report was 
just the beginning. I soon began to uncover evidence that Interior was putting the 
interests of private energy companies ahead of the interests of individual Indian 
beneficiaries . 
On September 19,2003, for example, I visited Minerals Management Service’s 
@MS) Office of Minerals Revenue Management (MRM) in Dallas - the repository of 
Interior’s oil and gas audit files. My visit was prompted by two events: (1) the March 
2003 report of Interior’s Office of the Inspector General, revealing that MMS officials 
not only fabricated oil and gas audit files but were rewarded for their efforts; and (2) 
Justice’s denial of my repeated requests for access to these files. As you noted in yow 
March 15,2004 decision den$ng Interior’s disqualification motion, since August 1999, I 
have visited dozens of sites to ensure that Interior was safeguarding trust documentation 
in accordance with your directives. Interior not only approved of these visits, but 
encouraged its employees to cooperate with me filly during my inspections. My visit to 
Dallas was different. After only two hours, during which I uncovered chaotic record- 
keeping practices and missing audit files, MMS officials informed me that Justice 
ordered that I leave. 
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The reason for this dramatic shFft in policy is obvious. Whereas my previous 
investigations exposed random incidents of unprotected trust documents in remote 
Interior locations, my recent findings implicated the agency’s systemic failure to properly 
monitor the activities of energy companies leasing minerals on individual Tndian lands. 
The consequences of these findings could cost the very companies With which senior 
Interior officials maintain close ties, miIlions of doIlars, (In that regard, I direct you to 
the recent Inspector General Report of Investigation (PI-SI-02-0053-T), discussing the 
relationship between Interior’s most senior officials and energy company executives.) 
Interior did not want this iuformation to come to light and for the first and only time 
during my 6ve-year tenure as Special Master, ordered me to leave a site. , Honorable Royce C. Lamberth 
April 5,2004 
Page 3 of 3 
Just one week after my Dallas site visit, in a motion filed on September 26,2003, 
Interior issued the following ultimatum: either you rule on its disqualification motion by 
October 15, or the government would file a mandamus petition in the Court of Appeals, 
seeking to have that ~Cout disqualify me. At that time, the government h e w you were 
beginning a six-defeindant criminal trial on October 1,2003, that involved multiple counts 
of murder, drug offenses, and racketeering, making it impossible for you to rule on the 
disqualification issue by the October 15 “deadline.” Interior was just going through the 
motions and, in mid-October, filed its m a n b u s petition in the Court of Appeals. 
It is evident that Interior, supported by the Department of Justice, is committed to 
removing me from this case. It is also plain that the agency’s efforts to wiseat me bear no 
relationship to the reasons it offers in its disqualification motion, but rather to my 
discovery of significant problems with its appraisal and record-keeping practices. A full 
investigation into these matters might well result in energy companies being forced to 
repay significant sums to individual Indians, Interior could not let this happen, 
Justice has been much too long in coming for the hundreds of thousands of Native 
Americans whose land the government has supposedly held in trust, in some cases for 
over a c e n t q . Billions of dollars are at stake. It is past time to get systems kn place that 
will enable the Departments of the Interior and Treasury to track trust data accurately in 
the future, as well as render an honest and reliable accounting in the present. In this 
respect, my presence in the case has become a distraction. And while I am confident that 
Interior’s disqualification motions would ultimately be denied, I have no doubt that were 
I to continue as Special Master, the agency’s efforts to disqualify me would persist and 
accelerate. Given this, I will be of no practical service to the Court. I hope that, with my 
resignation, the parties will be able to move rapidly toward fundamental reforms. I also 
hope that, understmding this background, my successors will be more efficacious. 
Finally, on a personal note, you are a courageous, decisive, and diligent judge 
who stnves to do justice in each and every case. It has been my honor to have served 
with you. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. 
Sincerely, 
Special Master J 
cc: Dennis M. Gingold, Esq. (via hand delivery) 
Sandra P. Spooner, Esq. (via hand delivery) ELOUISE PEPION COBELL, et aL 
THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
. - FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 
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Civil Action No. 
96-1285 (RCL) 
Plain tiffs, 
V. 
GA&E NORTON, et al. 
Defendants. 
above-captioned litigation; and 
this case. 
reasonable, it is hereby 
$40j452.09 no later t!ma April 30,2004; 
than April 30,2004; and 
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ORDER 
Pursuant to this Court’s Order dated February 24, 1999 appointing a Special Master in the 
Pursuant to this Court’s Order dated August 12, 1999 directing the Special Master to file 
reports with this Court on the first day of each month and in consideration of the attached 
monthly Report of the Special Master dated April 5,2004, it is hereby 
ORDERED that the Final Monthly Report of the Special Master be filed in the record of 
Upon review of the compensation request for services and expenses rendered by Alan L. 
Balaran, the Security Assurance Group, and Douglas B. Huron, and, upon finding them to be 
ORDEKED that the defendants pay the Law Offce of Alan L. Balasan the sum of 
ORDERED that the defendants pay Douglas 3. Huron the sum of $65,284.62 no later ORDERED that the defendants pay Security Assurance Group the sim of $12,975.25 no 
later than April 30,2004. 
Ro#e C. Lamberth 
United States District Judge 
cc: Alan L. Balarazn, Esq. 
Special Master 
1717 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. 
Thirteenth Floor 
Washington, D.C. 20006 
Dennis M. Gingold, Esq. 
1275 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. 
Ninth Floor 
Washington, DC 20004 
Sandra P. Spooner, Esq. 
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 
Civil Division 
Commercial Litigation Branch 
P.O. Box 875 
Ben Franklin Station 
W a ~ h i n g t ~ ~ ~ , DC 20044-0875 
FAX: (202) 514-9163 
Linda Liner 
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 
Civil Division 
Office of Planning and Budget Evaluation 
1100 L Street, NW 
Room 9042 
~?vasF&@ton, DC 20530 
FAX: (202) 6 16-2207