# Letter to Secretary Doug Burgum, Department of the Interior --- MTN Minneapolis, Minnesota [email protected] May 13, 2026 The Honorable Doug Burgum Secretary of the Interior U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street NW Washington, DC 20240 **Re: The Morrill Act Endowment, the University of Minnesota Truth Report, and the Half-Breed Tract / Dakota Land-Cession Litigation — Coordination Request Under the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud (E.O. of March 16, 2026)** Dear Secretary Burgum: I write to identify three Department of the Interior portfolio items — the Boundary Waters mineral withdrawal review, the Half-Breed Sioux Tract litigation, and the underlying Morrill Act land-grant records of the University of Minnesota — as foundational to the consolidated federal posture toward Minnesota that the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud now coordinates. The Department of the Interior holds the title-record authority that anchors the chain of custody. **The Portfolio Issue.** The Department of the Interior currently has open or pending: (1) review/modification of the Boundary Waters (Superior National Forest) mineral withdrawal affecting the Twin Metals and NewRange (formerly PolyMet) copper-nickel projects; (2) the Half-Breed Tract / Dakota land-fraud litigation in which Sioux plaintiffs have filed suit against the United States as trustee — litigation referenced by the State of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota in their own commissioned Truth Project Report; and (3) custodial responsibility for the federal title records documenting the chain of conveyance from Dakota cession territory under the 1851 Treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota through the Morrill Act of 1862 to the University of Minnesota endowment, with approximately 25,840 acres of the original grant remaining in University of Minnesota ownership. https://mn.gov/indian-affairs/assets/full-report_tcm1193-572488.pdf | https://www.landgrabu.org/universities/university-of-minnesota **The University of Minnesota Origin — Foundational.** The 1851 Treaties acquired the Dakota cession territory at approximately twelve cents per acre. When the resulting Morrill Act parcels were sold to settlers in the 1860s and 1870s, the market price was approximately five dollars per acre. The return on the underlying genocide, expressed as a percentage, exceeds 25,000%. The capitalization of the University of Minnesota's endowment is the conversion of that 25,000%-return spread into permanent institutional capital. The federal title records the Department of the Interior maintains are the authoritative documentation of every step in that chain. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-12/pdf/STATUTE-12-Pg503.pdf | https://www.mnhs.org/treatiesmatter **The Institutional Admission — Foundational.** The University of Minnesota's own commissioned Truth Project Report (April 11, 2023), produced in cooperation with the Minnesota Department of Indian Affairs, contains the following finding: the founding board "committed genocide and ethnic cleansing of Indigenous peoples for financial gain." That finding is the institutional admission of the foundational predicate. It is not a rhetorical claim. It is the University's own attested finding of fact in a commissioned report distributed by the State of Minnesota. https://mn.gov/indian-affairs/assets/full-report_tcm1193-572488.pdf **The Institutional Admission — Contemporary.** In October 2025, the University of Minnesota signed an Office for Civil Rights Resolution Agreement acknowledging that its PhD Project partnership violated Title VI by discriminating against white and Asian students. The institution that confessed in its own commissioned report (April 2023) to foundational fraud has, eighteen months later, signed a federal Resolution Agreement acknowledging contemporary unlawful conduct. The institutional pattern is documented across 174 years by the institution's own attested admissions. https://www.startribune.com/the-u-signs-agreement-acknowledging-discrimination-against-white-and-asian-students-cuts-ties-with-recruiting-nonprofit/601564669 **The Interior Department's Distinctive Role.** Unlike other Cabinet departments addressed in this campaign, the Department of the Interior holds the original-record authority. The Bureau of Land Management's mineral survey records, the General Land Office records, and the federal patent records establish, by primary documentation, exactly which parcels were conveyed to the State of Minnesota under the Morrill Act, when those parcels were sold by the State, and which parcels remain in University of Minnesota ownership today. The Half-Breed Sioux Tract litigation — the suit by Sioux plaintiffs against the United States as trustee — operates on records the Department of the Interior holds. https://www.blm.gov/ **The Consolidated Federal Posture.** The Department of Justice has filed United States v. State of Minnesota (0:25-cv-03798, D. Minn., Jan. 14, 2026) challenging the §43A.191 credentialing-preference statute. The Department of Education and HHS have referred Minnesota to DOJ for Title IX non-compliance (Jan. 26, 2026). The House Oversight Committee's March 4, 2026 report documents approximately $9 billion in Medicaid fraud. The Task Force to Eliminate Fraud is the cross-agency coordinator established by the March 16, 2026 Executive Order. The Department of the Interior's title-record holdings are the documentary foundation that supports every other federal action by anchoring the chain of custody to the asset base. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud/ **The Ask.** I respectfully request that the Department of the Interior: 1. **Produce a complete title-record audit** of the Morrill Act conveyance chain to the State of Minnesota and onward to the University of Minnesota, with particular attention to the 25,840 acres still held — as the documentary basis for the Half-Breed Tract litigation and the broader chain-of-custody framework now operating across the consolidated federal docket; 2. **Coordinate with the Department of Justice** on the relationship between the Interior title records, the University of Minnesota Truth Report finding of foundational fraud, the October 2025 OCR Resolution Agreement, and the §43A.191 federal complaint — treating the chain of custody as one integrated record; 3. **Review the Boundary Waters mineral withdrawal** in light of the federal posture toward the underlying land-tenure history, and the University of Minnesota's documented use of its land-grant endowment for purposes its own commissioned report has acknowledged were pretextual; and 4. **Report findings to the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud** under the March 16, 2026 Executive Order coordination framework, so that the Interior portfolio is incorporated into the consolidated executive-branch response. This letter is one of approximately twenty Cabinet-level briefings I am submitting under the Task Force framework. The Department of the Interior receives the foundational-record version because the Department's documentary authority is what makes every other element of the chain prosecutable as one matter. Respectfully submitted, MTN [email protected] --- **Primary Sources Cited:** - E.O. Task Force to Eliminate Fraud: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud/ - UMN TRUTH Project Report (April 11, 2023): https://mn.gov/indian-affairs/assets/full-report_tcm1193-572488.pdf - LandGrabU UMN page: https://www.landgrabu.org/universities/university-of-minnesota - Morrill Land-Grant Act (1862): https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-12/pdf/STATUTE-12-Pg503.pdf - 1851 Treaties (MN Historical Society): https://www.mnhs.org/treatiesmatter - UMN OCR Resolution Agreement: https://www.startribune.com/the-u-signs-agreement-acknowledging-discrimination-against-white-and-asian-students-cuts-ties-with-recruiting-nonprofit/601564669 - US v. State of Minnesota Complaint: https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1415681/dl - House Oversight Report: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-Cost-of-Doing-Nothing_How-Tim-Walz-and-Keith-Ellison-Fueled-Minnesotas-Fraud-Explosion_3.4.26_FINAL.pdf - Bureau of Land Management: https://www.blm.gov/ #Addresses_Advisories_and_Archives