Thread by @jbendery

Good morning! ☕ A federal judge has ordered Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to give tribes hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency COVID-19 relief funds they should have gotten months ago. huffpost.com/entry/tribes-c…

After blowing through deadlines for months in getting $8 billion in badly needed coronavirus aid to the nation's tribes, the Treasury Dept was still planning to sit on $679 million of it for now.

A judge gave them til today to get it out the door.

“Continued delay in the face of an exceptional public health crisis is no longer acceptable,” U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta concluded in his opinion.

Copy of his opinion in here. huffpost.com/entry/tribes-c…

I asked @SenatorTomUdall, vice chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Cmte, for his thoughts on tribes' COVID aid constantly being delayed.

"A shameful scandal ... while people in Native communities are getting sick and dying & while businesses & essential services are shuttering."

Why has Treasury delayed getting billions in *emergency* congressionally authorized COVID relief $ out the door to the nation's tribes?

Mostly because of incompetence.

A lawsuit complicated matters, but mostly incompetence. huffpost.com/entry/tribes-c…

Here's reaction from @RepRubenGallego, who chairs the House Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the U.S.:

“It is unconscionable that it has taken court action to force this administration to distribute relief to Tribal governments as Congress intended and the law requires."

Anyway, Mnuchin trying to withhold $679 million of tribes' COVID-19 relief funds is just the latest way the federal govt has made it next to impossible for tribes to get the federal help they're entitled to.

It's outrageous. huffpost.com/entry/coronavi…