QUESTIONS ASKED. ANSWERS GIVEN. THE RECORD REMAINS.
By Staff Reports
The Kituwah Punk writer Troy Littledeer published a series of questions about a U.S. Senate candidate’s record on tribal sovereignty. He got answers. The answers raised more questions.
That is where the story stands.
Littledeer, editor of Kituwah Punk, published a two-part investigative series in April 2026 examining statements made by N’Kiyla “Jasmine” Thomas, a Democratic candidate seeking the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Markwayne Mullin. The Thomas campaign did not respond directly to the series. Thomas addressed it publicly. Within days, Organizing Okies — a progressive advocacy organization that had endorsed Thomas — withdrew its endorsement after initiating a verification review and requesting written clarification from the campaign.
Littledeer said he did not know what Organizing Okies was going to do.
“I do not coordinate with them,” he said. “I do not know what conversations happened behind their closed doors or what their internal process looked like. That is their story to tell, not mine.”
The questions and what followed
The series documented a written exchange between Littledeer and the Thomas campaign, a conflict between Thomas’s account of outreach to the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and the account provided by UKB legal counsel Victoria Holland, and a January 2026 Instagram video in which Thomas described tribal sovereignty while holding a corn husk doll.
On Sept. 11, 2025, Thomas emailed Littledeer directly from her campaign address — nkiyla.thomas@jasmineforok.com — with a subject line reading “Questions about UKB.” She wrote that she had been digging into the history and current issues involving the UKB and its sovereignty, had gone through documents and articles, and had scheduled a Teams meeting with a UKB council member who was unable to attend.
Her second question read: “Respectfully, what’s a valid reason for me as a candidate and a citizen to raise concerns here? From what I’ve read, it seems heavily tied to commerce and gaming, but is there more at stake that I should know about?”
Commerce and gaming. That was her framing of the UKB land fight on Sept. 11, 2025 — a fight over 76 acres purchased in 2000, applied for trust status in 2004, approved by the Interior Department in 2011, litigated through federal courts for eight years, and twice ruled on in the UKB’s favor. The land determines whether UKB members qualify for federal health care grants, housing programs, and education funding. It is not a gaming dispute.
Littledeer answered her questions that same evening. He documented the federal recognition history, the jurisdictional dispute, M-37084, the Mullin rider, and the asymmetry of survival between two governments — one fighting for land to house its members, one fighting to maintain exclusive territorial control. The exchange is in the record.
That email arrived 116 days before Thomas posted the Instagram video.
When the series published in April 2026, Thomas responded publicly on her verified Threads account. In that exchange, she wrote that she had just learned what a congressional rider was by consulting an attorney. She described herself as a nurse, not a lawyer. Those posts no longer appear on her Threads account. Screenshots are retained by Candy Mink Springs Media LLC.
“Sovereignty is not learn-as-you-go,” Littledeer told Giduwa Cherokee News. “It is not campaign fodder. It is not a platform position you sharpen when the room requires it. For us it is the rent. The water. The jurisdiction. The burial ground. The reason we are still here.”
The land
The UKB purchased 76 acres in Tahlequah in 2000 and applied to take the tract into trust in 2004. The land sits within the boundaries of the old Cherokee Nation reservation. The Department of the Interior approved the application in 2011. The Cherokee Nation filed suit. A federal district court sided with the Cherokee Nation in 2017. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed that ruling on Sept. 5, 2019.
The same day the Tenth Circuit ruled, the Cherokee Nation said it was considering further legal options and maintained it still held governmental authority over the land.
According to then-UKB Chief Joe Bunch, trust status was the mechanism that would unlock health care access, education funding, and federal grant eligibility for UKB members. Former Chief John Hair, 87 at the time of the ruling, called it one of the happiest days of his life.
The land is in trust. The dispute over what the UKB can do with it has not been resolved.
The photograph
On June 29, 2025 — 55 days before Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. appeared before the Muscogee Nation National Council — Thomas posted a photograph to her campaign Facebook page. She was standing beside Hoskin.
“Meeting Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. of the Cherokee Nation was an absolute honor,” Thomas wrote. She praised his leadership, his commitment to sovereignty, and his advocacy for Indigenous rights. She closed with a Muscogee word for thank you. Thomas is Chickasaw.
On Aug. 23, 2025, Hoskin told the Muscogee Nation National Council that supporting the UKB would cause irreparable damage to the relationship between the Cherokee Nation and the Muscogee Nation. Nine council members voted to table a resolution supporting the UKB position. It did not advance.
Littledeer was present at that session.
Fourteen days later, Thomas emailed Littledeer asking him to explain the UKB land fight.
Thomas has not addressed that sequence publicly.
The record
Mullin’s history with the UKB land question is documented in Littledeer’s March 22, 2026 investigation, published in the Tahlequah Daily Press and other media outlers. According to that report, draft federal language from Mullin’s office — obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the UKB — would have required Cherokee Nation consent before the UKB could take any land into trust. Federal courts had already rejected that position. The language arrived at the Interior Department without a floor debate, without a committee vote, and without notice to the UKB.
Mullin is an enrolled Cherokee Nation citizen. Hoskin leads that government. Hoskin has publicly defended the legislative proposal as an exercise of Cherokee Nation sovereignty.
Thomas has publicly criticized Mullin while praising the principal chief whose government opposed the UKB’s land application in federal court and whose government, on the day the Tenth Circuit ruled in the UKB’s favor in 2019, said it was considering further legal options.
“Anyone who cannot tell the difference between accountability and attack,” Littledeer said, “has already answered something important about how they would handle the office.”
The UKB waited 17 years for trust status on that land. The land is in trust. What remains unresolved is the fight over use authority and future applications — the difference between a government that can serve its people and one that cannot.
Troy Littledeer is a member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma, a lifetime member of the Indigenous Journalists Association, and the 2025 recipient of the Tim Giago Free Press Award. He was present at the Muscogee Nation National Council session on Aug. 23, 2025.
Sources: Email exchange, N’Kiyla “Jasmine” Thomas to Troy Littledeer, Sept. 11, 2025; N’Kiyla “Jasmine” Thomas campaign Facebook page, June 29, 2025; N’Kiyla “Jasmine” Thomas, @nkiylaforoklahoma, Threads, screenshots retained by Candy Mink Springs Media LLC; Kituwah Punk, April 14, 2026, kituwahpunk.substack.com; Giduwa Cherokee News/Tahlequah Daily Press, March 22, 2026; UKB-NSN.gov, Sept. 6, 2019; NewsOn6.com, Sept. 5, 2019.