Government files first brief in Navajo trust case

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The outgoing Bush administration filed its first brief in the contentious Navajo Nation trust case last week, raising a new claim about the handling of a botched coal lease. Solicitor General Gregory Garre, a Bush nominee, told the U.S. Supreme Court that the tribe engaged in the same type of behavior at the center of the long-running dispute. The government's brief said the tribe learned through ex parte, or one-sided, communications that the lease dispute was likely being resolved in its favor. The tribe had accused Reagan administration officials of ex parte contacts with a lobbyist for Peabody Energy, the world's largest coal company. The tribe said it was forced into signing a bad deal with Peabody as a result of such behavior. But now the Department of Justice says information developed more recently in the case shows the tribe spoke with government attorneys and officials and believed Peabody would have been ordered to pay a higher royalty rate on a valuable coal deposit in northeastern Arizona....