Free Republic

A former business partner of Hunter Biden was sentenced Monday to more than a year in prison for his role in a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe of some $60 million in bonds. The defendant, Devon Archer, was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison by Manhattan Judge Ronnie Abrams, who said the crime was “too serious” to let him just walk. “There’s no dispute about the harm caused to real people,” Abrams said, noting that the defrauded tribe, the Oglala Sioux, is one of the poorest in the nation. Archer will also have to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a former business partner of presidential son Hunter Biden who was seeking to overturn his criminal conviction for securities fraud. As is typical, the justices did not comment in leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling that reinstated the fraud conviction of Devon Archer. A lower court judge had earlier set aside a jury verdict that found Archer guilty of fraud and ordered a new trial. Biden was not involved in the effort to defraud the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe in a scheme that involved the sale...

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden released a statement on Columbus Day that instead celebrates Indigenous People’s Day — an emerging rival to the federal holiday. Biden’s statement made no mention of the Italian discoverer Christopher Columbus and Biden spokesmen did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether he also is celebrating Columbus Day. Biden’s statement on Monday said, “Our nation has never lived up to our full promise of equality for all — especially not when it comes to the rights of the indigenous people who were here long before ships arrived from Europe.”

Devon Archer was convicted of defrauding the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of bond-sale proceeds. Hunter Biden was not implicated in the scheme, which defrauded the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of the proceeds of bond sales. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File/AP Photo A federal appeals court reinstated the fraud conviction of Hunter Biden’s former business partner on Wednesday, reversing a lower court judge who had granted his request for a retrial. Hunter Biden was not implicated in the scheme, which defrauded the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of the proceeds of bond sales. But the scheme was committed under...

The chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe is calling for the removal of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, arguing that it is carved in an area that is considered sacred land to Natives. "Nothing stands as a greater reminder to the Great Sioux Nation of a country that cannot keep a promise of treaty then the faces carved into our sacred land on what the United States calls Mount Rushmore," said Harold Frazier, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, where the memorial is located. "The United States of America wishes for all of us to...

In South Dakota, the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe has ordered President Trump to cancel a planned visit to Mount Rushmore on July 3 for his Independence Day celebration. Julian Bear Runner told The Guardian, “The lands on which that mountain is carved and the lands he’s about to visit belong to the Great Sioux nation under a treaty signed in 1851 and the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and I have to tell him he doesn’t have permission from its original sovereign owners to enter the territory at this time.”

Gov. Kristi Noem sent letters Friday to the leaders of both the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe demanding that checkpoints designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus on tribal land be removed, the governor's office said in a statement. According to Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe checkpoint policies posted on its social media, its reservation residents may travel within South Dakota to areas the state has not deemed a Covid-19 "hotspot" if it's for an essential activity such as medical appointments or to get supplies unavailable on the reservation. But they must complete a health questionnaire when...

GREEN BAY, Wis. - Democratic U.S. House candidate Steve Kagen apologized Monday for commenting that he was late for a meeting on an Indian reservation because "we're on Injun time." "I did not mean any harm by my words and I humbly apologize if I offended anyone. That was not my intent," he said in a statement hours after the National Republican Congressional Committee released a tape recording of the comment. Kagen attended a meeting Friday on the nearby Oneida Reservation and at his next stop in Green Bay he made the following remarks: "Appreciate getting here almost on time....

Leonard Peltier is back in the news again after being transferred to a prison even further away from his tribal homeland.

Native American teenagers in South Dakota will be leading the way on Tuesday as tens of thousands of pro-life teens across the nation wear their pro-life t-shirts to school. The Indian teens will be sending a strong message to their tribal leader that they don't favor her idea to built an abortion facility on their reservation. "Native American teens in South Dakota are showing their support for the pro-life movement by participating in this year's National Pro-life T-shirt Day," says Erik Whittington, who heads up the national project. The national day tomorrow is a chance for teens in the Oglala...

But Michael New, a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard-MIT Data Center, has inspected the South Dakota Secretary of State's Web site to discover other striking facts: While Democrat Tim Johnson ran statewide about 12 percentage points behind what Mr. Daschle got in his 1998 Senate victory, in Shannon County Mr. Johnson ran about 12 percentage points ahead. He got 92% of the vote compared with Mr. Daschle's 80%. Nowhere else in the state did Mr. Johnson improve his vote share relative to Mr. Daschle. Senate voter turnout was up 27% statewide for this year's close contest compared with 1998,...