Cherokee Nation attorney general: largest settlement reached, new litigation filed against Oklahoma prosecutors

Attorney General Chad Harsha told the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council on Feb. 13 that the Nation has moved to disbursement on a court-approved settlement in a long-running trust case and has opened new federal litigation against two Oklahoma district attorneys.

Harsha said the settlement, which he described as "the largest, as I understand it, single settlement that we've ever had in the history of the Cherokee Nation," resolves litigation that has been pending since 2016. He said the settlement has been approved by the court in Washington, D.C., and that the process of collecting funds from the judgment fund is underway but separate from any discussions about freezing grants or payments.

The update matters because the settlement—Harsha said—addresses long-running claims about the United States government's accounting of Cherokee Nation financial…