How the Freedmen Deal Went Down Part IV: Are You Okay With Being Lied To By Your Government?

Over the last week or so (in parts I-III), we’ve established that the Cherokee people are being lied to about how the Freedmen miraculously became citizens just days before last fall’s elections.  Joe Crittenden was asked to supply all the communications he had with the BIA and the Freedmen as he negotiated a deal to make them citizens, but all Crittenden turned over were a bunch of all-employee emails which appears someone else wrote and signed his name to, and receipts for this trip to DC so he could get paid some cash money for going to our Nation’s capital and selling HIS Nation’s constitution down the river.

So, what are you, the Cherokee citizens, going to do about it?  You’ve been lied to, and there is a cover-up going on!  Documents that exist have not been turned over as required by law, and no explanation has been given as to why.

On this blog, we only care about the TRUTH.  And nothing makes us madder than when people lie to the Cherokee people.  Crittenden will get away with the lie and his noncompliance with the law if the Cherokee people let them.

So here’s what you all need to do.  Get out a sharp pencil, a dull crayon, an old IBM Selectric or the writing utensil of your choice and send a Freedom of Information Act Request to Bill John Baker, Cherokee Nation, PO BOX 948, Tahlequah, OK 74464.

Write something like this:

Dear Chief Baker,

One of the pillars of your campaign and pledged hallmarks of your administration was transparency.  In the interest of the Cherokee people’s understanding of how people with no Cherokee blood became citizens of the Cherokee Nation just before September’s election, even though our Tribal Supreme Court had ruled they were not citizens.

Please provide ALL written emails, letters and phone call notes, travel, meeting dates and topics Acting Chief Joe Crittenden, and ANY of his staff, liaisons, contractors or other types of representatives have had with Larry Echo Hawk, Echo Hawk’s staff, BIA officials, DOI officials, Marilyn Vann, Jon Velie (attorney for Freedmen), any other Freedmen plaintiffs or representatives and DOJ concerning the Freedmen, citizenship for the Freedmen, pending Court cases, Judge Kennedy and anyone else associated with this important case for the past six months.  Please include the materials left out by Joe Crittenden in a previous FOIA request, including the letter(s) he sent to the BIA that the BIA acknowledges receiving but that Crittenden refused to disclose earlier.

Please respond to this request as required by LA 25-01, Cherokee Nation’s  Freedom of Information Act."

Or something like that.

Better yet, ask him to put the documents on the web.  Pester the folks at the Cherokee Phoenix about why they are ignoring the story and it’s coverup. 

Write your council members demanding to know what happened.

Write the Attorney General and point out Crittenden’s noncompliance.  It’s AG Todd Hembree's duty to make sure EVERYONE follows the law, including and ESPECIALLY elected leaders.  If our Constitution is ignored, supposedly for the greater good, we have a right to know how that happened.  We have a right not to be lied to and then have the TRUTH covered up.

Do it.  And if no one else will publicize what you find, rest assured we will always stand for the CHEROKEE TRUTH.

How the Freedmen Deal went Down, Part I

In a September whirlwind, Acting Principal Chief S. Joe Crittenden (APCSJC) was in the middle of a political firestorm that was more than he bargained for.  The CN Supreme Court kicked freedmen out of the tribe on his eighth day as APC.

A couple of weeks later the BIA told him they weren’t going to recognize PC2011 Election 2.0 if the freedmen couldn’t vote.  And they couldn’t, because they weren’t citizens.

APCSJC immediately sprung into action, working with the BIA, freedmen and everyone else to make a deal so the election could happen and he could become DCSJC, which is what he always wanted.  

In the process, he sold out the Cherokee Nation Constitution by single-handedly agreeing that the freedmen could be citizens even though a vote of the Cherokee people and the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court said they couldn’t be citizens.

A lot of us wanted to know what the hell happened.  How did we get here, as a Nation?  Who talked to whom, how was this deal made and was it really necessary? 

Someone was smart enough to request the documents as part of our open government here at Cherokee Nation.  What they actually asked for was this:  “Please provide all written emails, letters and phone call notes, travel, meeting dates and topics Acting Chief Joe Crittenden and ANY of his staff, liaisons, contractors or other types of representatives have had with Larry Echo Hawk, Echo Hawk’s staff, BIA officials, DOI officials, Marilyn Vann, Velie (attorney for Freedmen), any other Freedmen plaintiffs or representatives and DOJ concerning the Freedmen, citizenship for the Freedmen, pending Court cases, Judge Kennedy and anyone else associated with this important case for the past six months.”

This request came less than a week after the federal court agreement by APCSJC, and less than two weeks after APCSJC himself said this about how he was going to fix the freedmen situation:  “I hereby re-pledge to the Cherokee People that I will be transparent and truthful.”

So what did we end up with?  A 94 page document responding to this public records request that is ASPSJC’s version of being “transparent and truthful.”  Surely this will finally tell us how we got non-citizens changed back into citizens just hours before our do-over Principal Chief election.  And for those of you who think this isn’t relevant, just remember: this citizenship compromise that APCSJC came up with in his 67 days as Acting Principal Chief is still with us now and may be for the rest of our lives.  So how did it happen?  Find out what the public record documents show in tomorrow’s Cherokee Truth.