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This is the tenth installment in a series of articles responding articles in the Denver Post by reporter Michael Riley which attack former Congressman and current Senate candidate Bob Schaffer for a fact-finding trip Schaffer took to the Northern Marianas Islands (“CNMI”) in 1999. It is the fourth of four notes responding to two articles (one in the Post and one in the Rocky Mountain News) regarding the reappearance of Allen Stayman, a pro-union political partisan who attacked the CNMI from his office in the Clinton Administration's Interior Department and then from a position as a Democratic Senate staffer.

Stayman Gets His Wish: “An Economic Holocaust”

As you consider the following, please keep in mind that we’re not talking about Cambodia or Bangladesh here. Citizens of the CNMI are American citizens, subject to paying American income taxes and subject to American laws outside of those they reserved for their self-rule in their Covenant with the US executed in 1975.

Two key parts of the Covenant are provisions allowing the islands to implement their own labor laws (including minimum-wage laws) and their own immigration laws. It was these laws, particularly the labor laws, which mainland US unions were desperate to overturn because of CNMI’s ability to bring in workers at less than the federal minimum wage (though still handsome wages by the workers’ standards). Despite the efforts of many Republican in Congress, the unions eventually got their way, through efforts of the Congressmen they control, particularly George Miller (D-CA), and political operatives like Allen Stayman working under the protection of government jobs.

The result, according to Governor Fitial of the CNMI, has been nothing less than an “economic holocaust” for the islands.

The Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, S.2739, which became law in May, 2008, was passed using a cover story of national security, arguing that the CNMI’s immigration laws were a security risk. However, the Governor of the CNMI had already told the Federal Government that he was willing to have the Department of Homeland Security run the islands’ immigration to make sure that terrorists and criminals couldn’t get into the CNMI, as long as DHS was allowing bona fide workers to enter, as allowed in CNMI law.

Another provision of CNMI immigration law was that foreign workers were pre-qualified in their countries of origin to verify that they were capable of doing work of the quality and quantity required in the job description. These were mostly Chinese women, though there were men and women from around Asia who came to work in the CNMI’s garment factories. Most of the workers were known by their employers as experienced garment workers before coming to the islands. It would not have been hard for the Federal Government to implement national security measures while still allowing this lifeline for the CNMI economy to exist. The national security cover story for the law was a lie.

S.2739 also put the CNMI under the federal minimum wage law, meaning that employers there would face wages as high as they would face with employers based on the mainland. Unions argued that the existence of the CNMI was causing domestic garment workers to lose business, but once the CNMI was effectively put out of business that garment work went elsewhere in Asia where labor is much cheaper.

Indeed, the garment industry in the CNMI was already being pressured by lower wages in Asia, so no rational person could have believed that destroying the industry would have brought any benefits to American workers.

Just before S.2739 was made law, the Governor of the CNMI and the Representative of American Samoa to the US Congress sent a letter to Congress saying:

Simply put, the fragile private sectors of American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands cannot support additional costs when we are already in economic decline… We appreciate your leadership in making sure all workers receive decent wages and we stand with you, in principle. However, because there is no new money coming into our islands, the increase will not bring benefits to our people, but will more likely result in losses of jobs, benefits, and tax dollars. In short, American Samoa and CNMI could become welfare wardens of the federal government. We are sure this is not what Congress intended when it passed legislation to increase minimum wage in our jurisdiction.

The CNMI needed the government’s help, not its dead hand pounding them into poverty. During the first half of this decade, CNMI’s economy, particularly the garment industry, was already weakening due to it slowly but surely becoming clear that Stayman and friends would get their way some day soon.

The new immigration system is not simply more restrictive. It is strictly authoritarian, allowing the Secretary of Homeland Security to “establish, administer, and enforce a system for allocating and determining the number, terms, and conditions of permits to be issued to prospective employers…” And while the law doesn’t officially take effect until June, 2009, it might as well have been enacted now since employers are behaving as if it has.

In December, 2007, prior to the measure’s approval, Governor Fitial made a statement about a the proposed federalization of CNMI’s labor and immigration laws: “This bill would impose a federal labor system on the commonwealth which is nothing more, or less, than an effort to enforce a ‘command economy’ system on the Northern Marianas. In another day, it would be called socialism. It entrusts to government officials the responsibility for allocating laborers to particular industries and, within industries, to particular companies. These economic decisions should not be made — and cannot be made effectively — by government officials.”

The results in the CNMI have not been pretty. Employers subject to new, higher minimum-wage requirements are cutting back work hours for employees. Islanders are going fishing before and after work to try to save money on household food bills so they can afford electricity and gasoline.

Governor Fitial is quoted as saying “The economic impact of this law is as serious as I feared during the Congressional hearings (in 2007). Foreign investors have withdrawn from potential commitments to the Commonwealth because of the uncertainty regarding their future access to an adequate workforce.” The governor predicts the deportation of 20,000 foreign workers and reduction of CNMI’s local economic output by at least 50%.

Again, bad things are happening in the CNMI because of the passage of S.2739 even before its official enactment regarding labor laws. From a Saipan Tribune article in September, 2008: “It's clear that our economy is going through a difficult period right now,” James Arenovski, president of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview, adding that Saipan's unreliable electric power system, private sector fears over the pending federal takeover of the CNMI's immigration rules, and the slow death of the local garment manufacturing industry have all contributed to the 'instability and uncertainty' businesses are experiencing.”

According to Governor Fitial, another potentially disastrous effect of S.2739 is the imposition of U.S. visa requirements for all visitors to the CNMI, including particularly Chinese and Russian tourists, potentially devastating the tourism industry in the islands which over the past two decades alternated with the garment industry as the islands’ biggest sources of income for its citizens and taxes for the government and is so again after the destruction of the garment industry. Both Guam and the CNMI are working to get waivers of those visa requirements. The first part of 2008 seemed to show CNMI tourism stabilizing at much lower levels than several years earlier, down almost 50% from 1997. (Japan Airlines cut flights in 2006, severely damaging the CNMI’s tourism industry, but at least one Chinese Airline has recently added a direct flight to Saipan and Northwest Airlines flies to Saipan from Osaka.) Unfortunately, the worldwide economic turmoil is likely to cut tourist arrivals dramatically.

In true American (i.e. profit-driven, self-reliant) spirit, there is a Saipanpreneur Project, aimed at “creating economic success for the CNMI.” Here’s an interesting article aimed at Saipan’s would-be entrepreneurs, encouraging everything from becoming a government contractor to “research what Chinese vacationers want and need”. It's too bad the American citizens of the CNMI must try to create economic success fighting the headwinds of congressional blowhards and their henchmen.

The CNMI has plenty of problems outside of Congressional Democrats’ federalizing (socializing) some of their most important laws. There are some bright spots in the future, no thanks to Stayman and friends. This article covers much of the good and the bad of the CNMI’s economic prospects, including possible construction of casinos.

On September 15th, 2008, Governor Fitial filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government: “Our complaint focuses on the labor provisions of the legislation which are not and never have been part of the federal immigration laws. The complaint sets forth the economic injury that these provisions have caused, and will cause, to the Commonwealth.” Although the lawsuit is a long shot to succeed, I certainly hope it does, or at least embarrasses Congressional Democrats as sacrificing the economic lives of American citizens simply to show fealty to unions.

Allen Stayman and friends succeeded. They succeeded in destroying the lives of thousands of American citizens in order to heel to the wishes of their union masters. They accomplished nothing for mainland Americans but imposed their vindictive, brutal attack on the self-rule which the CNMI had negotiated in good faith with the US more than thirty years earlier. Allen Stayman is a villain and a criminal. In the spirit of knowing a man by his enemies, Stayman’s opposition to Bob Schaffer is one of the best endorsements of Schaffer’s policy views and strength of character that anyone could offer.

This concludes my rather exhaustive report (27 pages in Word) on the real CNMI story, the outrageous hit-jobs attempted by Denver Post reporter Mike Riley against Bob Schaffer, and the incredible, criminal behavior of a man who remains on the payroll of the Federal Government while in service of Democratic politicians and their union masters. Riley's article poisoned the well early on and made it very difficult for Bob Schaffer to get a fair hearing in the Colorado press. Of course, this was Riley's goal. But it is an inappropriate goal for a news reporter just as it was inappropriate for Stayman to engage in partisan politics while collecting a government paycheck. It's par for the course for Democrats these days, but it's still reprehensible and Mike Riley should be ashamed of himself.

This is the ninth in a series of articles responding articles in the Denver Post by reporter Michael Riley which attack former Congressman and current Senate candidate Bob Schaffer for a fact-finding trip Schaffer took to the Northern Marianas Islands (“CNMI”) in 1999. It is the third of four notes responding to two articles (one in the Post and one in the Rocky Mountain News) regarding the reappearance of Allen Stayman, a pro-union political partisan who attacked the CNMI from his office in the Clinton Administration's Interior Department and then from a position as a Democratic Senate staffer.

“Catholics United” (against Republicans) and Sister Mary Stella

Another participant in the media stunt at Bob Schaffer’s campaign office was James Salt, an “organizing director” of a liberal 527 called “Catholics United”. Salt’s only campaign contribution I can find was for a Democratic candidate for Congress and his organization is now running ads attacking John McCain for not “defending all human life”, despite the fact that McCain is anti-abortion while Obama is not only pro-abortion but hasn’t seemed that opposed to infanticide. In other words, “Catholics United” is, like Allen Stayman, all about getting Democrats elected regardless of the unethical, misleading, or illegal methods required. Salt’s other work all appears to be for Democrats or liberal organizations, including doing communications work for Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, who is such an important backer of Barack Obama that some thought she might be his running mate.

Salt read a statement from “Sister Mary Stella” of the Sisters of the Good Shepherds in which the nun chastises Congressman Schaffer for his views on CNMI issues. Indeed, my research shows that Sister Mary Stella is passionate about and active in issues of human trafficking, including testifying before the US Senate about it in July, 2007.

However, at the time of Bob Schaffer’s visit, there were two main issues surrounding the CNMI and human trafficking was not one of them, at least not one that even the majority of the critics of the CNMI were discussing. One major question was “forced abortion”, a claim for which I have found no substantive evidence, and absolutely no evidence either substantive or not of that ever having been common practice in the islands. The only “forced abortion” claims I have heard of were anonymous and/or about a worker who had an abortion in China, not in the CNMI.

An investigation by the Catholic News Agency, including contact social services providers in the CNMI, “confirmed Schaffer’s assertion that evidence on forced abortions is lacking.”

The other major question was whether working conditions in the CNMI amounted to “sweatshop” conditions. On this score, Schaffer, as I have reported before, was probably the only Congressman to have a publicly-admitted impact on making an improvement, being partly responsible for the closure of the “Little MGM” factor on the island of Saipan because of its poor working conditions.

Therefore, it is highly relevant to quote some of the testimony of the same Sister Mary Stella Mangona, of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, before the Senate Committee on Natural Resources on February 8, 2007:

The CNMI has suffered from a negative reputation based on the conditions existing in "sweat shop" garment factories which were exposed in the 1990s. Indeed there were heinous abuses at the time. Complaints were filed. Due process, along with the pressure generated by high-profile news media (the 20/20 story, for example), resulted in dramatic improvements. Changes were mandated. Some of the worst violators closed their CNMI factories. By 2003, I had seen a significant change in amelioration of the problems presented. The information about improvements in working conditions, however, never received the same level of publicity as the reports of the original violations. Among those relatively few people who even know of the existence of the CNMI, even to this day the reaction to mention of Saipan tends to be something along the lines of "Isn’t that that terrible place with all those sweat shops?"

Sr. Stella proceeded to relate a story about some foreign workers who were treated fairly by the CNMI government after being deceived by a Hong Kong-based employer. To be sure, Sr. Stella did not believe that all was (or is) sweetness and light in the CNMI and she still had (and maybe has) serious concerns about CNMI immigration law, which you can read in the testimony linked above.

In other words, even this politically-active nun seems to be admitting that the primary issue which critics of the CNMI pretended to care about (most of them were simply fronts for unions who didn’t like competing against the CNMI’s lower wages) have improved dramatically and that the CNMI no longer deserved a reputation as a place of sweatshops. (Remember, this testimony was from 2007…that will be relevant later in this document.)

Now, while one must always hesitate in criticism of clergy, particularly of a nun, Sr. Stella does not seem to be beyond controversy herself. A fascinating letter to the editor of one of the CNMI’s main newspapers in February, 2008, criticizes not only Sr. Stella, but also our villain-of-the-week, Allen Stayman. The letter, by Mr. Gergorio Gruz, President of a Saipan social advocacy organization called Taotao Tano, criticizes Sr. Stella for “calling people racist” and asks “since when has the Catholic religious organization get (sic) involved in politics? After careful studies and research on the activities of…Sisters of the Good Shepherd, (Sister) Stella Mangona…we had concluded that these organizations are all federally funded and it is crystal clear and obvious that there has been a collaboration and collusion efforts to instigate the passage of the fast-tracked federal legislation H.R.3079.” (S.2739, mentioned above replaced H.R.3079.)

The Ghost of Stayman Returns After OIA

Cruz’s letter is fascinating because it mentions Allen Stayman as well as Sr. Stella, with this paragraph: “The untimely departure of Mr. David Cohen of Department of the Interior’s Insular Affairs also raises questions whether he had a falling out with Senate staffer Allen Stayman. We must all remember that Mr. Cohen is a sincere and passive person, who probably could not handle the injustices left behind from instructions by the Good Shepherd, Allen Stayman.” And later in the letter: “Innocent people were used and victimized by the Good Shepherd, Allen Stayman, in his quest to federalize our local control of immigration. We must remind you that a lot of misdeeds, lies, controversies, and misconceptions have taken place here in our homeland…”

David Cohen was U.S. Interior Department’s deputy assistant secretary for insular affairs. He stepped down in early 2008; Cruz’s letter suggests a reason, but I have no way to verify the implication. Cohen spoke at a conference for Island Government Finance Officers in December, 2007. Quoting from a Mariana’s Variety newspaper article on his keynote speech: He said “in most of the insular area economies, there is an unsustainable imbalance between the public and private sectors.” A strong private sector propels a healthy economy, he said. This way “jobs are created and taxes are collected to fund essential services for the public.” One can imagine how someone like that would be on the wrong side of someone like Allen Stayman whose motivation was precisely to destroy the CNMI’s garment industry, which was the islands’ biggest or second-biggest employer. It is ironic that Cohen was speaking in Hawaii of the destruction which Stayman and friends were about to wreak on the CNMI economy.

The final installment in this series explains the vindictive pointless destruction of the economy of the CNMI, whose citizens are American citizens, by the servants of Americas unions.

This is the eighth in a series of articles responding articles in the Denver Post by reporter Michael Riley which attack former Congressman and current Senate candidate Bob Schaffer for a fact-finding trip Schaffer took to the Northern Marianas Islands (“CNMI”) in 1999. It is the second of four notes responding to two articles (one in the Post and one in the Rocky Mountain News) regarding the reappearance of Allen Stayman, a pro-union political partisan who attacked the CNMI from his office in the Clinton Administration's Interior Department and then from a position as a Democratic Senate staffer.

OIA Lawsuit Involvement

OIA field officer, Jeff Schorr, then had a bright idea of his own, included in the subpoena materials called “OIA lawsuit involvement”. He suggested bringing class-action lawsuits against employers in the CNMI (regarding “job discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy”, and referencing the never-demonstrated claim of forced abortions in the CNMI.) Schorr had spoken to a Denver-based law firm about the idea and says to North in a memo “I spoke with Al (Stayman) about the prospect of the firm suing one or more garment factories on these grounds – perhaps a class action suit – and he was delighted with the idea.

Eventually the firm of Milberg Weiss did bring class action suit against the CNMI garment industry…a perfect choice of firm for a group of bad actors like Stayman, North, and their Congressional and union patrons.

In May, 2006, a federal grand jury indicted Milberg Weiss, a long-time contributor to the Democratic Party, for paying $11 million in kickbacks to plaintiffs over 20 years, basically paying people to serve as plaintiff so the firm could serve as lead attorney. In 2007, three Milberg partners pled guilty, with founding partner Melvyn Weiss electing to go to trial. In 2008, Weiss changed his mind and pled guilty. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison, $10 million in fines and forfeitures, and three years of probation.

As I said, a very fitting choice of firm for Stayman’s friends, people who, like Stayman and North, believe that any actions, regardless of ethics or legality, are justified to accomplish their nefarious goals.

OIA Political Activity

The last packet of subpoenaed material is called “OIA political activity”. It shows a stunning effort by government employees of the OIA to illegally engage in partisan politics.

According to my source who was involved with hearings on these issues, Stayman and his office were “operating as an adjunct to the DNC, at taxpayer expense, targeting Republican Congressmen including Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, Dana Rohrbacher, Brian Bilbray, and Phil English. They conducted opposition research, wrote draft press and campaign materials, and coordinated efforts with opponents of Republican members of the House of Representatives.”

A good example is an October 6, 1999 letter from Alley Stayman to “Segal Joshi” (he misspelled Joshi’s first name, which is Sejal), Assistant to the Executive Director of the Democratic National Committee in which he urges the DNC and other Democrats to “repudiate” the Democratic Governor of the CNMI for working too closely with Republicans. The note also includes a draft press release for the DNC and asks Joshi “What is the right way to approach this problem this week?” The letter is not only on Interior Department letterhead, but it has Stayman’s signature on it below his typed name.

In the opinion of my source, Stayman perjured himself before Congress, claiming that he did not read the memo before he signed it and that he did not think it was ever sent. But two subsequent documents show that Stayman was lying. First is a memo by David North dated the same day as the memo saying that he “talked with Sejal Joshi…Told her of Al’s interest in talking with her and asked her (Sejal) to call Al. Told Al of the call.” And next day, Stayman wrote another memo to Joshi, titled “Re: More on that Nominal Democrat” in which he asks Joshi to “take a long a few more pages when you see BJ tomorrow to provide a little more substance to our position on the Marianas.” (BJ is B.J. Thornberry, then Executive Director of the DNC, who resigned in 1997 after being linked to the Democratic Party’s acceptance of millions of dollars of illegal “soft-money” contributions from foreigners and who was reported to have had an affair with former Colorado governor Roy Romer.)

Other political activity from Stayman’s OIA included:
• A memo from David North to the DNC, including two press releases from CNMI Governor Tenorio, asking the DNC “to repudiate this man, and his allies.”
• A fax to “Keith”, apparently an OIA employee stationed in the CNMI, saying that “Al asks for you to take your camera and get social pictures of the group with DeLay.” (Congressman DeLay was visiting the CNMI to attend the governor’s inauguration; Stayman apparently attended the event as well.)
• A memo from North to the Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee asking on behalf of “some friends” for “the names and phone numbers of the Democratic candidate for Congress” for the then-upcoming 1988 election against Congressmen Rohrbacher, DeLay, and Armey. The reason? “The incumbents have been giving the Clinton Administration a hard time over its efforts to reform the sweatshops and trade law evasions now found in the (CNMI).”
• A memo from David North to the Deputy Editor of Roll Call, which begins “As a nameless source, working for a nameless organization, let me expand on our conversation of earlier today.” North is trying to get the editor interested in writing about the position of Resident Representative (of the CNMI) in Washington (interestingly hinting that he prefers the “gentlemanly” Republican to the “fiercely anti-Clinton” Democrat.) North ends the note by saying “Remember – no mention of me, or a collection of clips… Also, feel free to use any words or phrases in this memo. We are not sharing these ideas with any other Capital (sic) Hill publication.”
• A memo to the campaign manager for Christine Kehoe, the Democratic opponent to San Diego Congressman Brian Bilbray in 1998 in which North says “I am faxing from home, because I am doing this on my own time, and at some risk to myself.” In fact, he was faxing from work, on government time, and given that the Clinton Administration let him off without charges, as they usually did for political allies, I doubt he felt very much risk. North offers a draft press release and says “my motivations are: to help elect Democrats to the House and to punish the handful of obvious GOP sweatshop allies, such as Mr. Bilbray; my short-term reward would be, should you use this and subsequent material, a full set of clippings in the local media faxed to my house. My long-term reward, Mr. Bilbray’s defeat by Ms. Kehoe. I look forward to working (very quietly) with you.”

The documents I referenced in this article represent less than 1/3 of the material collected by subpoena of Allen Stayman’s OIA office. The material is technically public information but has rarely been seen by the public and is certainly not publicized by the dominant liberal media.

Allen Stayman, Union Thug With a Government Paycheck

Also, in 1999, an article about Stayman appeared in the Washington Times reporting on Stayman’s alleged threat against a U.S. Senator: “The same Interior Department official under investigation for on-the-job political campaigning against House Republicans was accused of threatening a GOP senator last year. Sen. Rod Grams asked the inspector general to investigate the purported threat by Allen P. Stayman, then-director of the Office of Insular Affairs, that he would ‘go after’ him because the senator was critical of his work.”

The Inspector General, whom I mentioned before as saying that OIA’s behavior under Stayman was the “most egregious” abuse he’d seen in 30 years of law enforcement referred the case to the Department of Justice and recommended to a House panel that David North be prosecuted by the US Attorney General. The DOJ let David North resign to avoid prosecution. The DOJ decided not to take action on some of the charges against Stayman but referred other charges to the Office of the Special Counsel (“OSC”). Stayman resigned which, according to my source, removed him from the jurisdiction of the OSC, undoubtedly the plan all along when DOJ referred charges to them.

Congressman John Doolittle described Stayman’s OIL perfectly in August, 1999: “The political attacks launched from OIA were aimed at the House leadership, rank and file Republican Members … all ostensibly because of their stand on labor and immigration issues concerning the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). In fact, the CNMI was a convenient excuse for illegal partisan campaigning assistance in the form of made-to-order press releases and opposition research offered to Democratic campaigns and offers of help to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCoC).”

And a representative of the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association reinforced the idea in 2000 when responding to a criticism by an OIA official regarding how much business the CNMI’s garment industry was losing over the prior year: “What do you expect from an OIA guy? I don’t understand why it is of any consequence to OIA whether we lose 3% or 30%. Everyone knows that if it weren’t for them wishing it were 100%, they wouldn’t even be commenting on our statements.”

This damning trail of evidence shows Allen Stayman to be a hyper-partisan pro-Democrat and pro-union activist who has no qualms about breaking rules and laws while taking paychecks from the taxpayer. The fact that he is the guy leading the attack against Bob Schaffer on the CNMI issue says all you need to know about the matter. I’ve thought all along that he was the Denver Post reporter’s source for the anti-Schaffer hit pieces in the Post in April, and now I’m all but certain of it.

Stayman is now a staffer for Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) in his capacity as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He has stayed involved in the CNMI issue, working hard to destroy CNMI self-rule and ruin the CNMI’s economy in the effort to shield unions from competition. Stayman and their union friends got their way when S.2739 passed both houses of Congress and became public law on May 8, 2008. More on this later.

The next installment in this series demonstrates the lack of credibility of other critics of the CNMI and of Bob Schaffer, including their obvious political partisanship trumping any pretense of working for human rights.

This is the seventh in a series of articles responding articles in the Denver Post by reporter Michael Riley which attack former Congressman and current Senate candidate Bob Schaffer for a fact-finding trip Schaffer took to the Northern Marianas Islands (“CNMI”) in 1999. It is the first of four notes responding to two articles (one in the Post and one in the Rocky Mountain News) regarding the reappearance of Allen Stayman, a pro-union political partisan who attacked the CNMI from his office in the Clinton Administration's Interior Department and then from a position as a Democratic Senate staffer.

On Monday, September 29, 2008, Allen Stayman tried to create a media circus in order to repeat old charges about Bob Schaffer’s role in opposing Stayman’s efforts to “reform immigration and labor on the Northern Mariana Islands” (as the Denver Post reporter puts it) and to try to tie Bob Schaffer to Jack Abramoff. Stayman and “human rights activists” came into Schaffer’s campaign office to read statements while press cameras were filming and clicking away. Joshua Shields, Schaffer’s campaign manager, offered twice to arrange a meeting between Schaffer and these people if they wanted a legitimate meeting rather than a media event. Their answer was just to read another statement then leave.

The real story here is not Bob Schaffer, but the corruption in the Stayman-led OIA during the Clinton Administration and the fact that Stayman should probably be in prison, not working for Democrats on Capitol Hill. (I suppose the standards for Stayman are consistent with the Democrats’ standards for Franklin Raines who also avoided prison due to the shameful settlement by our federal government.)

Additionally, it is interesting to look at the recent history of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (“CNMI”) because the wishes of people like Stayman and the unions he effectively served have eventually come true in the islands, leading to economic devastation (the Governor of the CNMI called it an “economic holocaust”) of those islands, most of whose residents are citizens of the United States. It is yet another example of the pernicious political and economic power of unions, and how their representatives can never be taken at face value. They will do anything, including break the law, to get their way. And that’s just what Stayman and his gang did.

Before I get into the details of Stayman and his departments malfeasance, let’s put it in perspective with a quote from a Washington Post story about Stayman: “Earl Devaney, the Interior Department's inspector general, testified to Congress in 2001 that the behavior of Stayman's office was the 'most egregious' he had seen in 30 years because of its political activity.”

I have received a package of materials which were the product of subpoenas issued to Allen Stayman and his staff at OIA in 1999. This package came from a Congressional staff attorney who was involved in the hearings. The materials are divided into sections which cover OIA’s illegal lobbying efforts, illegal privacy intrusions, illegal lawsuit involvement and illegal political activity.

YOU CAN VIEW SCANS OF A SELECTION OF DOCUMENTS HERE.

They are a damning collection of evidence against Stayman and his underlings and show him to be absolutely without credibility when he levels charges against Bob Schaffer or anyone else. Nearly all of the documents described below are on official government letterhead and all were retrieved from government computers.

Stayman’s key deputy at OIA was one David North. While North was basically the henchmen in all this, it is clear that Stayman was aware of and approving of North’s activities.

These guys were aware that what they were doing was illegal. According to my source, the OIA subpoena included, for the first time ever, a request for the office’s computer hard drives, not just printouts of their contents. A forensic computer technician recovered many deleted documents from those hard drives, the deletion of which by OIA staff was itself a federal crime.

OIA Lobbying

In the area of illegal lobbying by OIA, North wrote draft press releases for labor groups such as the American Yarn Spinners Association and the US Business and Industrial Council. These documents often began with statements such as these:
• “The following is to arrive at the Yarn Spinners’ Association in a plain brown envelope”
• “I am sending you a draft press release…written by an unknown hand, that I would like to discuss with you. If this, or something like this, is of interest, that hand would write similar press releases…and mail hard copies to you as well as a floppy disc in Word Perfect 5.1, so that you could shape them to your format and style, and place them on your own letterhead.”
• “Needless to say, this arrived at your office in a plain, brown envelope, and, of course, can be modified to meet your organization’s needs. Ideally it would be sent to the business editors of the dailies in North Carolina, to business publications there, and to the radio and TV stations. If it works well, the same plain brown envelope could present your organization with similarly tailored stories for several other states. Thank you for the warm response over the phone. Let’s talk again soon.”

The press releases amounted to scare tactics about how domestic garment makers will lose business to garment companies in the Marianas Islands, calling the situation a “lush little loophole."

And in case anybody wants to attempt to argue that North was a rogue actor, the documents on OIA lobbying include at least one memo from North to Stayman about what they were doing, including: “This grows out of conversations with you and Nancy over the last couple of days. My notion: let’s figure out, and publicize, the dollar impacts of the current CNMI policy… A model press release follows; we need someone else to release it, such as Commerce or the textile industry.”

In that same memo to Stayman, North says “Were I still in the consulting business, I would be delighted to get $5000 to do this little job; you might have to pay two or three times that to get a professor at a University, because of overhead rates. It is also something that Rich and I could do in a few days, if someone else were willing to accept DOI-ghosted work.” (emphasis mine)

All of these actions by the Stayman-led OIA were criminal, not just unethical

OIA Privacy Intrusions

The next section of documents is called “OIA Privacy Intrusions” shows Stayman trying to use the power of his office to harass citizens and companies, without probable cause, in the interest of pressuring people to accept the pro-union, anti-CNMI changes which he wanted to cause in the islands.

Stayman drafted a letter to the Secretary of the Internal Revenue Service in which he says that his office has the “corporate names of the 30 garment factories active in the CNMI” and asks “that the IRS simply check its computers to see if (FICA) payments were made by each of the 30 firms, and if the total paid reached the levels shown above.” He adds “Should substantial violations be found, IRS would be encouraged to seize outgoing shipping containers of finished goods, in addition to padlocking the factories…” Basically, Stayman had a Nixon-like “enemies list” and tried to get the IRS to attack the names on the list.

There is a well-known (among the people who care about this subject) memo from Preston Gates (Jack Abramoff’s former firm) about their lobbying strategy for the CNMI, which had hired Preston Gates to represent their interests in Washington. Stayman sent a fax to one of his staffers who was in the CNMI, suggesting that the staffer disclose what was a confidential lawyer-client document to the media and others.

Even more insidious than these privacy intrusions, however, was a December, 1998 note from David North to an Interior Department field worker, Jeff Schorr, in which he says the following about a man from the CNMI whom Stayman’s OIA did not like: “It might be useful to have his SSN, which may be hard to get quietly, or his DOB, which is probably available in the voting records. If we had one or the other we might be able to help CNMI (or some journalists) find some assets of his on the Mainland. All very distant and quite unofficial, so if you think the request inappropriate, no problem at this end.” Do you think North had any question about the request being inappropriate?

In the same note, North says that he sent “a lot of clips” to a reporter “doing a story about the trafficking of women and children for sexual purposes” and then suggests that Time Magazine “may be interested in the Marianas again.” He adds “We need to be careful with this, but they would like to learn enough about Willy Tan to sell their editors on doing a major story about him…” Willy Tan was the largest operator of garment factories in the CNMI, a figure whom Stayman, North, and gang very much wanted to destroy.

Other notes from North include:
• To a Washington Post reporter, including “an organizational chart for Willy Tan’s holdings.”
• To a Los Angeles Times reporter, including Willie Tan’s date of birth, Social Security number, Alien Registration (Green Card) number, and information about Tan’s parents.
• To a Time-CNN reporter, also including a chart of Tan’s holdings.

The next installment in this series will continue to lay out Stayman's partisan activity and criminal behavior, and to wonder aloud how a man like that could still have employ in the Federal Government.

This is the sixth in a series of articles responding to three front-page articles in the Denver Post by reporter Michael Riley which attack former Congressman and current Senate candidate Bob Schaffer for a fact-finding trip Schaffer took to the Northern Marianas Islands (“CNMI”) in 1999. It is the second of two notes responding to the Post's second article, dated April 11, 2008.

In case Abramoff isn’t a bad enough name, let’s throw in Tom Delay

Riley then moves on to try to taint Schaffer with the unpopular Tom DeLay, mentioning that DeLay had helped Ben Fitial become Speaker and mentioning an aide of DeLay’s who “was later mentioned in plea agreements…involving Abramoff.” What any of this has to do with Schaffer’s friendship with and endorsement of Benigno Fitial is beyond my grasp. What is clear is the obvious goal of the Denver Post and their reporter to imply corruption by Bob Schaffer without a shred of evidence and without any cause to believe that Schaffer did anything other than exactly what he said he did, for the reasons he said he did.

I asked Governor Fitial about Tom DeLay, to which he responded “I never spoke with Tom DeLay about this (election for the Speakership) or anything other than to help the CNMI.” Fitial reemphasized the point, saying “The only thing I spoke to Tom DeLay about was to help stave off federalization.”

“Congressional letterhead”?

One of the most objectionable and telling pieces of Riley’s “reporting” was his repetition of a left-wing blog’s claim that Schaffer’s endorsement letter was on official “congressional letterhead.” This claim is particularly odious, not only because is it patently false, but because it would also represent a violation of a rule which Congress and Schaffer take very seriously. Schaffer’s endorsement letter can be seen HERE whereas an example of official letterhead (from a current member of Congress) can be seen HERE. Official letterhead for a House members says “Congress of the United States” at the top, and usually “House of Representatives” just below that, like this:

Schaffer’s endorsement letter was not on official congressional letterhead, and the Post reporter’s repetition of that claim implies what the rest of his series of articles demonstrates, namely that he re-wrote and re-printed Democratic talking points which were apparently fed to him by various sources opposed to Bob Schaffer’s Senate candidacy.

Other Republican endorsements of Benigno Fitial

Fitial was indeed endorsed by at least two other Republicans…again, not part of any conspiracy but because they shared each other’s political agendas and their desire to prevent the unions and Democrats from destroying the CNMI economy by destroying its garment industry. Fitial had met a large number of Republicans on a visit to Washington, DC, in 2000, after the “Murkowski Bill” had passed the Senate and Fitial was lobbying the majority party to keep the bill from passing in the House. In a meeting with the Republican Conference, Fitial pleaded with the House Republicans: “Please do not kill the poor people of the CNMI by allowing federalization legislation to pass.”

Again, this was all about the issues, not about Abramoff, DeLay, or anything other than a dedicated public servant doing all he could to counteract what Fitial calls “the venom” of the Democrats leading the charge against the CNMI.

Benigno Fitial and Bob Schaffer endorsed and supported each other because they share views of the proper role of government in society and of the importance of a free-market economy. They are men committed to the “service” aspect of public service. Fitial, in describing his endorsement of Bob Schaffer, called him “the most honest man I have ever met in government” and noted that “nobody who knows Schaffer could conceive of his being involved in anything improper.”

The Post’s outrageous attempt to smear both Schaffer and Fitial with the names of Abramoff and DeLay, and with irrelevant but juicy-sounding innuendo, are beneath contempt and below any standard of professional journalism.

This series will continue with a rebuttal of Mike Riley’s third hit-piece against Bob Schaffer, including laying out the massive corruption of anti-CNMI forces inside the Clinton Administration and at a major law firm which turned its guns on the CNMI’s garment industry.

This is the fifth in a series of articles responding to three front-page articles in the Denver Post by reporter Michael Riley which attack former Congressman and current Senate candidate Bob Schaffer for a fact-finding trip Schaffer took to the Northern Marianas Islands (“CNMI”) in 1999. It is the first of two notes responding to the Post's second article, dated April 11, 2008.

Denver Post reporter Mike Riley’s second hatchet job against Bob Schaffer revolved around Schaffer’s connection to Benigno Fitial, currently the governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and formerly its Speaker of the House. As with Riley’s first article, I will debunk or clarify this article a point at a time.

Most of my research for this section of work was a 90-minute interview with Governor Fitial, as well as further interviews with Bob Schaffer. Not surprisingly, their answers both point to two men whose political actions are based on a combination of friendship and a deep commonality of political and economic views, the key source of their acquaintance.

An Abramoff “ally”?

The Post article begins by talking about Bob Schaffer’s 1999 endorsement of Fitial, taking a tone which implied that there was something untoward about that endorsement. That tone is set in the article’s title, “Schaffer twice endorsed Abramoff ally.”

To the extent that Fitial was an “ally” of Abramoff, it is because Abramoff was the CNMI’s hired lobbyist and Fitial found Abramoff to be effective in that role, protecting the CNMI from the damage which Congressional Democrats wanted to do to the islands. A better description than “ally” would be “contractor” or “employee.” Calling Abramoff an “ally” of Fitial’s is like calling an attorney an “ally” of his client. Of course their interests are aligned because that’s the only reason they have any relationship.

Riley says that advertisements which contained Schaffer’s endorsement “show that Schaffer was part of a concerted and public campaign by Republicans,” and that such campaign was in order to help Jack Abramoff.

These claims are fabrication with no basis in reality and are essentially reprinting the propaganda of a left-wing web site. Any decent reporter would know better, as would any decent editor of that reporter’s work.

Regarding the endorsement, Schaffer said “I responded to a request from Ben Fitial directly, not ‘in concert’ with anyone.” When asked why he supported Fitial, Schaffer responded “Fitial was a good candidate, pro-free market, conservative, just what you’d expect a Republican to be, and exactly the type of person you’d expect me or most Republicans to support. The idea that my support was part of a concerted effort is ridiculous.”

When I asked Governor Fitial why he believed Bob Schaffer endorsed him, Fitial answered “Because he believes in what I am doing and in me, and knows that I would do anything and everything to help my people. And because we both believe in God and we both always do what is right.” Governor Fitial also mentioned his and Schaffer’s common interest in education, noting that “we can’t improve the economy of the CNMI without an educated workforce.”

Governor Fitial’s esteem for Bob Schaffer came through in another off-the-cuff remark: “Bob Schaffer and his wife, Maureen, are very classy people. I would like more young people to emulate them.”

The descriptions by both men hardly sound like Bob Schaffer needed, or was part of, any scheme by Republicans to support Fitial. Both Schaffer and Fitial were disgusted by the Denver Post article which, of Riley’s three front-page anti-Schaffer articles, was probably the most desperate example of grasping at straws to try to make Bob Schaffer’s actions seem inappropriate even though they were nothing of the sort.

Riley continues his Democratic Party propaganda by attempting to tie Schaffer’s support for his friend Ben Fitial to Jack Abramoff. Regarding the CNMI issue, I have already demonstrated that Schaffer had no ties to Abramoff beyond Abramoff’s firm having helped organize (but not pay for) some airplane tickets for the Traditional Values Coalition, who sponsored Schaffer’s trip to the islands.

As Riley spent a lot of time discussing Abramoff in his third article, I will be addressing that issue in great detail in upcoming installments in this series. In brief, Governor Fitial’s position on Abramoff is that he “was paid by the CNMI government to represent the CNMI’s interests in the US. He did what he was paid to do: He protected our covenant and staved off the first federalization attempt of the CNMI.”

“Federalization”, which just passed Congress this year, is forcing the implementation of mainland US labor and immigration laws in the CNMI, to the great detriment of the islands and their inhabitants, mostly American citizens.

Then-speaker Fitial supported the renewal of the Preston Gates (Abramoff’s firm at the time) contract because the firm had been successful at fending off the attacks of the union operatives commonly known as Congressional Democrats. Fitial’s interest in Preston Gates was, despite Riley’s continued use of Abramoff’s name to imply impropriety, completely consistent with his goals and his duty to do the best job he could for the residents and citizens of the CNMI.

There were questions raised later about whether Preston Gates overcharged the CNMI for services. Fitial believed that was the case, and took action as governor. According to Fitial, “I instructed my attorney general to file a lawsuit against Preston Gates in the event that they did not satisfy our request for a refund of overpayment.” Preston Gates did comply with the demand for a refund, so the lawsuit was not filed. Does that action sound like someone who is an “ally” of Jack Abramoff, or beholden to any interest other than his duty to the public he serves?

This is the second in a series of articles responding to three front-page articles in the Denver Post by reporter Michael Riley which attack former Congressman and current Senate candidate Bob Schaffer for a fact-finding trip Schaffer took to the Northern Marianas Islands (“CNMI”) in 1999.

The Traditional Values Coalition

Much of the fuss about Schaffer’s trip to the Marianas is due to the fact that it was paid for by the Traditional Values Coalition (“TVC”), a religious conservative group which has long been the target of liberals in politics and media. Furthermore, those same liberals got TVC involved in the CNMI issue several years before the trip which included Bob Schaffer. Therefore, a detailed discussion of TVC is in order to help put this whole issue into proper context.

The following is based on an hour-long interview with Andrea Lafferty, Executive Director of the Traditional Values Coalition (“TVC”), who, along with her father, Reverend Lou Sheldon, traveled with Bob Schaffer to the CNMI in August, 1999. Mrs. Lafferty had visited the CNMI nearly 3 years earlier to investigate some of the same types of allegations which spurred the 1999 trip. The story of her first trip is worth telling in some detail because of how similar Bob Schaffer’s experience was a few years later. For purposes of context and to address concerns about bias, I would like to make it clear that I am not religious, not Christian, not anti-abortion, and not a supporter of “social conservative” organizations and particularly not of missionaries. I also disagree with TVC’s view on trade with China. That said, my impression of Andrea Lafferty was of someone deeply dedicated to her cause, not just the religious aspects but also in her personal mission to make a positive difference to society, one person at a time, whenever she gets the opportunity.

Andrea Lafferty and the TVC had been actively opposed to “Most Favored Nation” trading status for China in the 1990s based on China’s history of religious persecution and encouraging, or even forcing, abortions. In 1996, Mrs. Lafferty received a phone call from the legal counsel to Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) telling her that similar things were happening in the CNMI “on U.S. soil”. Lafferty’s reaction: “My blood was boiling”.

She spoke with a member of her church who happened to work for Preston-Gates; he suggested she should hear the other side of the story before simply accepting the allegations as fact.

Andrea Lafferty is a person who has lived a life of giving. As she says, “I’ve run a ministry caring for homeless children, had homeless children living with me, never with any compensation. I’ve always looked out for the down trodden, so (when I heard the CNMI accusations) I got very angry.”

Rather than take anybody’s word for it, and probably to the surprise of Sen. Akaka’s staff in particular, Mrs. Lafferty decided to travel to the CNMI: “I went to uncover anything evil going on under the US flag.” To make sure she got the most complete and accurate answers possible, she hired her own translator: A Chinese Christian missionary. In my view, such a translator would have been particularly sensitive to answers which claimed or implied the sorts of problems Lafferty went to investigate, such as mistreatment of workers, lack of freedom (especially religious), and particularly forced abortions. Lafferty stressed that she “got no briefings from Preston-Gates” prior to her trip.

Mrs. Lafferty visited factories as well as workers’ homes and dormitories. She and her translator “were invited into their rooms and offered tea”. According to Lafferty, she “was amazed at how clean most of the factories were; most had air conditioning, which not all the girls liked since they were used to the warmer climate.”

As far as living conditions in the dormitories, “the girls were living in bunk beds, with curtains for privacy, and big shower areas. They told me they had plenty of food. Groups of women were walking around in town, socializing, eating ice cream” and generally acting like free and reasonably happy people.

And regarding “forced abortions”, Mrs. Lafferty says “I was not able to find anyone who had an abortion, whether forced or not, and nobody I met knew anybody who had had an abortion.” Lafferty went out of her way to try to ensure honest answers from the workers: “We made it abundantly clear that if anyone was being hurt, raped, or enslaved, I would see to it that the perpetrator would go to jail, and the victim would be taken care of. If anybody needed help, I would help them.” Still, with this sort of “witness protection program” offer (my characterization, not Lafferty’s), and with a Chinese missionary as a translator, none of the allegations which made Lafferty’s blood boil seemed to have any substance.

[Not surprisingly, TVC is a permanent target for liberal media and Democratic activists. In one of the worst examples of liberal bias in journalism, an NPR reporter suggested that TVC had something to do with the anthrax-laced letters sent to Senators Daschle and Leahy in 2002. The event so angered some members of Congress that it became the subject of a Congressional hearing. Lafferty’s testimony at the hearing can be found at http://www.traditionalvalues.org/anthrax9.php. NPR eventually settled with TVC, but Mrs. Lafferty has never forgotten what I agree was unforgivable behavior by NPR.]

According to Lafferty, after learning more of the business issues surrounding the CNMI’s garment industry, “it dawned on me – this is all about minimum wage and unions. It really ticked me off that Akaka’s staff tried to play us like that.” She told Akaka’s legal counsel that “this was a minimum wage issue and he was less than honest.” Lafferty recognized that “they tried to send me on a wild good chase. But I was smart enough to find a translator I could trust.” She also noted, with a bit of social conservative irony, that “you had to stop in Hawaii on the way back from the CNMI. I couldn’t believe how many hookers there were on the streets in Honolulu, right under Akaka’s nose. What a perfect end to the trip.”

Regarding the 1999 trip with Bob Schaffer, Lafferty returned to the CNMI because the allegations didn’t stop. She visited more factories while Schaffer was doing his own investigation, and their findings were essentially identical…with each other’s and with Lafferty’s findings from her first visit to the CNMI. As far as who paid for the trip that Schaffer was part of, Lafferty put it directly: “We paid for the trip and as far as I know we were not reimbursed for anything by Preston-Gates.”

No evidence of improper or illegal behavior by Preston Gates in CNMI

The Post article’s contention that Schaffer “met with clients of Preston Gates” is another misleading statement. Schaffer would have had to meet with “a client of Preston Gates” if he met with any representatives of the CNMI's garment industry as they had retained (through the Western Pacific Economic Council) Preston Gates to lobby for them. Schaffer was meeting with people relevant to his mission, including government officials, regardless of whom (and more than likely without knowledge of whom) they had hired as attorneys or lobbyists.

Indeed, consider the alternative: Was Bob Schaffer supposed to investigate an industry without actually meeting with any of the people who run the industry simply because they had hired a lobbyist?

Beyond it being unlikely that Schaffer would have known or cared which lobbying firm the Saipan Garment Workers Association ("SGMA") had chosen to hire in the months before Schaffer visited, given the purpose and context of his investigation, there was also no reason that such a relationship between a the organization (or the CNMI government) and its lawyers should somehow have been assumed to be improper. The same is true if there were any lobbying contract between Preston Gates and any other local business association. In other words, even while it is doubtful that Schaffer was made aware of any relationship between a particular organization and Preston Gates, there is no reason that any such relationship would or should have been a concern had it been known by him. Furthermore, there was no conflict of interest in Schaffer’s meeting with anyone on the island because Schaffer was not there at the invitation of a lobbyist or with any intention of doing anything other than getting and reporting the most accurate information possible.

While opponents of the CNMI’s garment industry would like to confuse the public by attaching the Abramoff name to the CNMI, the bottom line was that the SGMA was hiring the lobbying firm they thought could best help them navigate the treacherous waters of Congress, just as every other interest group does, and I have found no evidence of corrupt or illegal behavior by Preston Gates in their capacity as counsel to or lobbyist for the CNMI (although there have been questions about whether the CNMI government overpaid for Preston Gates’ services.)

It should be noted that while Preston Gates had previously been retained by the government of the CNMI, that contract had expired well before Schaffer's visit.

Even in articles which strongly attack the CNMI garment industry and which try to use the Abramoff name (or the name of Tom DeLay) as an instant negative in the minds of readers, an objective reading shows Preston Gates as nothing more than an effective lobbying organization when it comes to the CNMI issue. Unlike some of Abramoff’s true scandals, the lobbying by Preston Gates appears to have been unremarkable (if expensive) other than for its success and the degree to which opponents of the CNMI garment industry were angered by that success.

“A palm-studded beach resort”

In one of the lowest moments (of many low moments) of the Post’s April 10th article, Michael Riley mentions a “palm-studded beach resort”, and at least one web site shows a picture of Bob Schaffer parasailing.

Bob Schaffer notes (and multiple sources have confirmed to me) that he worked with little rest and no play for about 4 days on Saipan, as he planned to do. One of the people who confirmed this is currently employed by the government of the CNMI and was actively involved in visits by Congressmen and other federal officials during the late 1990s. After those several days of nearly non-stop investigation and meetings, Schaffer was scheduled to fly home the next morning when someone asked him how he had enjoyed the island, to which Schaffer responded, according to the source just mentioned, “It’s a shame it’s so beautiful and I never got a chance to see it”. That person then contacted someone he knew at the airline and arranged to get Schaffer’s return flight moved from the following morning to the following evening so that Schaffer and his wife (who had accompanied him to investigate garment factories and interview workers) could have a few hours of relaxation before flying home. Schaffer, his wife, and the staffer who accompanied them on the trip, enjoyed a few hours of recreation without hosts and without being accompanied by representatives of the government or any industry, after Schaffer’s mission on the island had been completed. In my view, it was a few well-earned hours of vacation after days of intense investigation.

In the words of the senior staffer quoted earlier, “Bob spends most of a week working hard…he works harder than any member of Congress I’ve ever known…then has to be nearly arm-twisted into a few hours of relaxation and parasailing, and that becomes the story?!?”

This is the first in a series of articles responding to three front-page articles in the Denver Post by reporter Michael Riley which attack former Congressman and current Senate candidate Bob Schaffer for a fact-finding trip Schaffer took to the Northern Marianas Islands (“CNMI”) in 1999.

Disclosure: I know Bob Schaffer and have contributed to his Senate campaign but I am not and have never been employed on any basis by Schaffer's, or anybody else's, campaign.

In April, the Denver Post ran three front-page articles by reporter Michael Riley attacking former Congressman and current Senate candidate Bob Schaffer for a fact-finding trip Schaffer took to the Northern Marianas Islands (“CNMI”) in 1999.

(The links to the articles in question: April 10, April 11, April 13)

The type of misleading information and partisan rhetoric used in those “news” stories demands response, not only to the facts of the case but also to the likely source of Mr. Riley’s information.

In a series of articles, I shall not only demonstrate the multiple problems with the Denver Post’s stories but I’ll also provide information based on interviews with:
• Bob Schaffer
• A former senior staffer for Bob Schaffer
• Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition
• Benigno Fitial, Governor of the CNMI
• A government official from the CNMI who was involved with many Congressional (and other federal government) visits to the islands, including Schaffer’s visit
• A former Congressional staffer who investigated corruption in the Clinton Administration’s Department of the Interior specifically related to CNMI issue

Liberal web sites such as ColoradoPols.com, TalkingPointsMemo.com, and DailyKos.com also piled on with uncritical acceptance of the Post’s claims as well as incorrect “information” of their own. (For perspective, DailyKos is so far to the left fringe that they call the Denver Post “so pro-Republican”.) While each of these sites has offered commentary worth of rebuttal, most of it is premised on the Post articles, so I will not spend much time discussing those web sites directly.

Additionally, I have obtained documents which were the product of subpoena by Congress regarding officials at Department of the Interior during the Clinton Administration -- people whom I believe are the most likely source, whether directly or indirectly, for Mr. Riley based on their past behavior patterns. A selection of documents will be made available in PDF format as part of this series.

Because most of the people I’ve interviewed for this series of articles work for government or in jobs where they must interact frequently with government, I will not be disclosing their names even though some of them gave me permission to do so if I felt it to be necessary.

At the completion of this series of articles, a series which I expect to be run in about 8 installments, I will make available the entire text of the series in one file.

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The first of the Post’s hit-piece trifecta appeared on April 10, 2008 and was entitled “Abramoff ties cloud Schaffer's '99 fact-finding trip”. The article begins with a misleading implication and continues as thinly-veiled Democratic propaganda against Bob Schaffer.

For those who haven’t been following the story, the articles attempt to tie Bob Schaffer’s fact-finding trip to the CNMI, a trip, which was funded by the Traditional Values Coalition (“TVC”), to Jack Abramoff, and then attempts to make readers believe that Schaffer somehow had ties to Abramoff. Separately, the article presents a description of working and living conditions in the CNMI which was not supported by the findings of people, including Schaffer or others, who went to look into allegations of sweatshops and “forced abortions”, thereby implying that Schaffer supported mistreatment of workers.

I will get into the motivations behind the CNMI allegations in the latter part of this series, but it is important to set the context now: The CNMI’s 1976 covenant with the United States allowed the islands to administer their own labor and immigration systems. This allowed the islands to set lower minimum wages than were required in the 50 states, as well as allowing them to efficiently bring in (and send home) workers. Garments from the CNMI are allowed to have a “Made in the USA” tag in them, giving them advantage over many Asian garment producers in an industry that often had to deal with quotas, and with an American population that from time to time was very interesting in “buying American”. This lower minimum wage meant that the CNMI could produce garments much cheaper than unionized garment factories in the US. And while that translated into huge savings for any Americans who bought clothes, it infuriated the unions and their serfs in the Democratic Party. This was the source of the hatred of the CNMI and especially its garment industry which spurred criminal activity within the Clinton Administration and created the allegations of worker mistreatment which Bob Schaffer and others determined to be almost entirely fictional.

“Partly arranged” by Abramoff?

In the article’s third paragraph, Michael Riley notes that Schaffer “didn’t say that the trip was partly arranged by the firm of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff”. The implication is that this is something Schaffer should have disclosed. However interviews with former Schaffer staffers and others have made it clear that to their knowledge neither Schaffer nor his staff had any dealings with Preston Gates regarding the trip. The only indication of Preston Gates having even a tangential relationship to the trip was that the airline tickets were possibly purchased through their travel agent. According to a former senior staffer for Schaffer, his former Chief of Staff, Susan Wadhams, noticed the Preston Gates name on the jacket of the tickets and contacted the Traditional Values Coalition and the Ethics Committee to verify that the tickets were paid for by TVC, and only by TVC, and that the trip itself complied with all Ethics requirements. The senior staffer told me that it was extremely unlikely Schaffer would have been involved in that process or those inquiries “because it is the Chief of Staff’s job” to take care of such matters.

Any reimbursement by Preston Gates to TVC for the trip, if it happened at all (since it has never been shown), was and remains unknown to Schaffer, to the Executive Director of TVC, and, as far as I can tell, to the Post reporter.

Near the end of the article, Riley admits that TVC paid for the trip and quotes Dick Wadhams (whose late wife, Susan, was Schaffer’s Chief of Staff at the time) who re-emphasizes that “whatever involvement (Abramoff) had with Traditional Values Coalition wasn't known at the time.” And while Riley then tries to tie TVC to Abramoff, he notes that it was only “later investigations” which made any connection between the two.

No connection to Abramoff

According to the former staffer, “We never worked with Jack Abramoff. As a matter of fact, I never met him until months after Bob retired – and I would have met him had he been involved with our office in any way since I was aware of all of Bob’s meetings. ”.

And according to Schaffer himself, “Remember, most people including me hadn’t heard of Jack Abramoff in those days. Preston Gates was just another lobbying firm.” In fact, after serving three terms in Congress, Schaffer honored his term-limit pledge and did not run for re-election in 2002, whereas the scandals surrounding Abramoff did not come to light until 2005. Schaffer added, “…my trip to the Marianas was paid for by the Traditional Values Coalition. Furthermore, I did not accept anybody else’s schedule as to where and when to go on the island during my investigation of the labor and ‘forced abortion’ claims.”

Indeed, if Preston Gates were close to Bob Schaffer, why did they never, as a firm or Abramoff as an individual, contribute to Schaffer’s campaigns or PAC, as they did for Mark Udall?

Coming in the second article of this series, a detailed discussion of the Traditional Values Coalition, the lack of any evidence of improper behavior by Preston Gates in the CNMI, and the truth about a "palm-studded beach resort".