Silent witness - campaign finance investigation of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt

Washington Monthly, Dec, 1997 by Samuel Seidel

With these two salient pieces of information -- Babbitt's words to Eckstein and O'Connor's note on his calendar -- Democratic wrongdoing seemed more than probable. Sen. Pete Domenici put it bluntly, "What is most plausible [is that Harold Ickes and the Democratic National Committee] were involved in pushing somebody not to issue this permit"

Babbitt's behavior looked pretty suspicious. Caught in a his-word-against-mine situation, Babbitt, as a political appointee, has a compelling interest in protecting the White House. One doesn't have to be a die-hard Republican to see GOP Sen. Robert Bennett's side of things when he claimed to be having "a hard time believing a pure and chaste decision was made"

But the committee didn't have to take Babbitt's word for it. During his testimony, Babbitt revealed that a career civil servant, George Sidbine, had made the final recommendation regarding the controversial petition. It was based upon this recommendation that the deputy assistant secretary, Michael Anderson, had sent the Chippewa the letter of refusal.

Here was the break Republicans had been searching for. If a smoking gun existed in this matter, Skibine held it. Forget Babbitt's testimony; the committee needed to ask Skibine -- the guy who made the actual recommendation on the petition -- whether he was influenced or pressured in any way. And was he aware of potential contributions to the DNC by the group of tribes opposing the petition? Yet remarkably, the committee never bothered to contact Skibine.

Of course, Senate investigators are seasoned professionals, and they may have felt that such a direct line of inquiry was too obvious to pursue. Here at The Washington Monthly, however, we have no such qualms. So we contacted Skibine in November and asked if he had been influenced in any way when submitting his recommendation on the Chippewa's request. His response: an unenivocal "No." Had the bureau's final position concurred with his? "Yes" Had he been made aware at any time of potential contributions to the Democratic party based on his decision? "No" Bottom line: Skibine insists that his recommendation was made entirely on the merits -- or lack thereof -- of the tribes' petition. (As it turns out, the opposing tribes weren't the only people against the casino. Both the town of Hudson and the nearby community of Troy had come out against allowing gaming in the area, as had Wisconsin Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson and the Wisconsin and Minnesota delegations in Congress.)

When asked why they never deposed Skibine, the Senate committee insisted that, underlings aside, the buck stops with Babbitt. But if they had truly been interested in determining how Babbitt was exercising his responsibility (i.e., if he had indeed simply ratified the independent decision of a department staffer), the Senate definitely needed Skibine's testimony. Of course, the committee's "buck-stops" explanation also fails to take into account that the committee had, in fact, deposed Skibine's superior, Michael Anderson. In a sworn statement, Anderson told the majority staff that neither lobbyists, DNC officials, nor anyone from the White House had in any way affected his opinion on the Hudson issue; that Skibine had independently drafted the letter containing the BINS ruling -- and that the BIA had approved only one Section-20 request since the law went into effect in 1988.