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Navajo President Asks for VP's Resignation

FILE - Buu Nygren announces his win for the Navajo Nation president as he reads tabulated votes from chapter houses across the reservation at his campaign's watch party at the Navajo Nation fairgrounds in Window Rock, Ariz., on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/William C. Weaver IV, File)
William C. Weaver IV/AP
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FR171925 AP
FILE - Buu Nygren announces his win for the Navajo Nation president as he reads tabulated votes from chapter houses across the reservation at his campaign's watch party at the Navajo Nation fairgrounds in Window Rock, Ariz., on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/William C. Weaver IV, File)

The president of Navajo Nation has removed responsibilities from his vice president and asked her to resign.

Buu Nygren said at a press conference yesterday that Navajo Vice President Richelle Montoya no longer represents his administration.

The tribe has been mired by political upheaval that began earlier this year when the vice president outlined allegations of intimidation and sexual harassment within the administration.

Nygren denied the allegations, but a former human resources director for the tribe then began collecting signatures across the reservation as part of an effort to recall Nygren.

Montoya's decision in September to sign the recall petition targeting the Navajo president was a signal of her quote “formal break from this administration,” said Nygren in yesterday’s press conference.

The decision to remove her authority and announce it yesterday was precipitated, he said, by a recall committee press release threatening violence against him and his staff.

"The minute they incited political violence by saying, 'If you take out Buu, you take out the chief of staff and you take out the deputy chief of staff,'" NYgren said.

"So to me, I attend a lot of public events. We've got the Western Agency Fair and the parade coming up. When you get people that are making threats out there, it's for the safety of not only myself, but the safety of the well-being of everyone that works in my office and my division directors as well.”

Montoya’s charge against Nygren was the second report of sexual misconduct in the office of the president and vice president, according to Law360

A federal investigation into the first allegation is under way.

Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch confirmed last week that the investigation into Montoya's claims was ongoing. 

Montoya made history in 2023 when she took office along with Nygren as the first woman to serve in the Navajo office of the president and vice president.

Nygren has accused Montoya of failing to make progress on the priorities he had set out for her, saying she has refused requests to submit daily schedules and reports and has instead made travel requests that don't align with the administration's priorities.

More than 29,000 signatures are required to recall a tribal president. It’s not yet clear how many the recall petition effort has validated.

Portions of this story were adapted from one by Susan Montoya Bryan of the Associated Press.