BY MIRIAM WASSER
Just north of the Arizona border in San Juan County, Utah, copies of phony documents have been turning up at gas stations and post offices, aimed at local Native American tribes.
The bogus handouts are filled with false information related to an actual pending proposal to establish a 1.9-million-acre national monument around the Bears Ears twin buttes in southeast Utah, leading many to believe they're part of a campaign of disinformation meant to undermine tribal support for the designation.
Tacked to bulletin boards, the documents include a letter purportedly penned by Albert Holiday, vice president of the Navajo Nation’s Oljato Chapter, falsely claiming that tribes would be barred from collecting herbs and conducting ceremonies inside the national monument; a forged letter from U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell saying the federal government is reducing the size of the Navajo Reservation by about 4 million acres; and a flyer announcing that Jewell and President Barack Obama will travel to Utah later this summer to christen the monument and inviting everyone to the celebration "except Utah Navajos..."