Powerful Message from Montana Tribal Leaders On the Drug Cartels

We've been saying this for years- the Mexican drug cartels are targeting our Indian Reservations here in Montana, and they're also targeting Native American women.

Montana tribal leaders sent a powerful message to US Attorney General Merrick Garland this week. According to a must-read report by Q2's Hailey Monaco, they basically said that they are in desperate need of help to fight the Mexican drug cartels.

Check out what Levi Black Eagle, the Secretary of the Crow Tribe, had to say in particular. He talked about how Lodge Grass was so safe when he grew up there as a kid that you could leave the doors unlocked at night. Now, the cartels have changed everything.

“The sad thing is that on our reservation, in some of our communities, it’s easier to buy drugs than it is groceries, which doesn’t make any sense,” Black Eagle said.

The Chairman of the Crow Tribe also directly linked the drug cartels to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

“Human trafficking and the missing and murdered indigenous people,” White Clay said. “Fentanyl use, meth use and the users are becoming younger and younger.”

Last November, a Fort Peck Tribal Councilman also testified on Capitol Hill. When Councilman Kirk asked a law enforcement agent what can be done to curb the fentanyl crisis he responded, “shut the border down.”

I sounded off on the fact that local news outlets didn't publicize the appearance of AG Garland ahead of time. Any other time a Cabinet member has travelled to Montana, it usually gets publicized in advance. (I also apologized to our listeners for missing a media advisory in my crowded email inbox...but like I say- usually something this big gets widely reported ahead of time) Listen to that full audio in the below podcasts.

Plus, we got a surprise phone call from Stacy Zinn about halfway through the 9 a.m. hour podcast while we were live on the radio Wednesday AM.

She recently stepped down as the head of the DEA and is now running for Congress. She called out the Biden Administration, AG Garland, and Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) for failing to secure our southern border and for failing to defend our reservations from the Mexican drug cartels. She said she couldn't get any support out of Tester when she headed up the DEA here in Montana.

Stacy Zinn: But just real quick, one thing that can be utilized to solve the cartel problem is to get more tribal cops hired in BIA. So the money that is being shifted to the State Department to fund the NGOs that are funding the monies to the illegal immigrants that are coming up here- divert those monies and hire other additional officers for the BIA. And that would solve a lot of problems for the Native American community.

Aaron Flint: Wow. That's a great point. The so-called border deal that they were pushing in the US Senate, thankfully our delegation- well, other than liberal Senator Jon Tester- opposed it. Tester supported it. But yeah, basically, it would have made the border crisis permanent, and they would have given billions of dollars to these NGOs that are facilitating the human trafficking and drug trafficking operation on our southern border. So you make a great point. Okay. You were willing to give those NGOs money. Why don't you take that money and hire BIA officers on our reservations?

Stacy Zinn: Absolutely, absolutely. And here's another problem is that- this is a knee jerk reaction from AG Garland. We've had a problem here for a long time. We have been trying to get DC to wake up, and we've asked for support. The Drug Enforcement has asked for support. The BIA has asked for support, and it's been whispering in the wind. But now that that New York NBC reports it- all of sudden now it's a crisis? And what is so shameful is that there's a particular politician here that's running for office that never reached out to the Drug Enforcement Administration, but now he's in the Billings Gazette saying that they gotta fix the cartels. Where has he been?

Aaron Flint: Yeah, and of course, you're referring to liberal Senator Jon Tester, your sense. So you're saying he didn't do squat for the DEA when you were trying to fight the cartels here in Montana, but now that he's up for reelection and Biden's up for reelection- now, all of a sudden they want to pretend to care what tribal leaders think about the drug cartels?

Stacy Zinn: Oh, absolutely. It's- this is the reason for my call, because it's like there's only so much you can take. The word I'm trying to nail- you know the word. But with that being said, though, our Native American communities need extra assistance. Yes, they do. They need the resources. The resources could be available if DC would wake up and and funnel the money- divert the money from other sources to the BIA.