Last night
ABC News repackaged elements of an old 20/20 report about sweatshops on the Commonwealth of North Marianas Islands (CNMI) to highlight Tom Delay's travel and his connection to GOP fundraiser, Jack Abramoff.
The Saipan travel appeared legal but it was not. The sweatshop interests on Saipan, not the CNMI government, paid for these trips. DeLay's host was Willie Tan, a textile executive who owns most everything on Saipan. Willie and his family own a massive Asian corporation based in Hong Kong and the Mainland.
It is time to take a closer look at the Tan Family, Saipan, Abramoff and DeLay. One might find that Tan and his Chinese corporation paid for his trip (and the travel of about 100 other GOP Congressmen, staffers and opinion leaders) to have fun in the sun while women toiled nearby in slave-like conditions. The CNMI government did not pay for the trips because Abramoff did not have a contract to lobby for the islands. We know this because the CNMI government audited their lobbying expenses.
A November 9, 2001
report by the Office of Public Auditor for the Commonwealth of North Marianas Islands on CNMI contracted lobbyists from January 1994 through September 2001. It covers the history of lobbying efforts in Washington, specifically the work of Jack Abramoff.
Another report (referenced in the above report) is an audit of professional service contracts with the CNMI Executive Branch from 1995 to 1998. Page 9 and 55 highlight $3,228,774 in payments made to Jack Abramoff (Preston Gates) for which there was not a valid contract.
Both are interesting document to compare to Abramoff's lobbying disclosure reports. The CNMI audit lists $811,131 more payments to Preston-Gates (and Jack Abramoff) than are reported in the Lobbying Disclosure Reports. Oddly this is very close to $822,978 in auxiliary charges (for travel and the like) reported on page 19 of the 2001 audit.
Jack's other clients for CNMI were all Tan family fronts and/or companies: $2,350,000 from the Western Pacific Economic Council; $90,000 from SGMA; and $120,000 from Tan Holding Corporations. This old Houston Chronicle article mentions that SGMA paid for part of DeLay's trip (and that DeLay wants to use the Saipan sweatshops as the model for a US guest worker program).
The audits make it clear that between 1996 and 1998--when Abramoff flew many Congressmen, Senators their staff and family members to CNMI--Preston-Gates (and Jack Abramoff) did not have a contract with the government of CNMI. Jack was paid for by an informal agreement with some local elected officials who were closely associated with the Tan family and by his other Tan family clients when the back door CNMI government payoffs were too slow for Jack's needs. Traveling Congressmen, Senators and their staffs, never made disclosures of most of these trips. This was illegal. This is yet another in the growing list of Abramoff/Delay related scandals.
There are many aspects to the Abramoff story. This is only one, but he has been arranging special Congressional travel trips for years. I came across many, many trips to Indian casinos in the travel disclosure docs when I was looking for CNMI travel. And the arranged trips to Korea, Scotland and Russia have turned out not be paid for by the first layer of travel disclosure.
There is another scandal behind every dollar Abramoff raised, laundered and spent for the GOP since 1980.