Eight years ago I was on deadline working on an annual directory of screened and approved Green Businesses, The National Green Pages, and September 11, 2001 was my day to send the book off to the printers. I was in Washington DC that morning working in my office just a few blocks away from the White House. I learned about the first plane hitting the towers just minutes after it happened.
I was not the only one working in DC that morning, but for most of us that day our work projects were set aside as we learned that the second tower had been struck.
Little did I know that at that very moment Kevin Ring, a key member of Jack Abramoff’s team of lobbyists was also at work—and I suspect at his office not far from mine.
Kevin Ring is an enemy of America and today he went of trial. He faces a strong case by the DOJ, but like most members of the Abramoff Conspiracy he will not be prosecuted for their worse crimes and their real victims are unlikely to know justice.
An email Ring sent out as our Nation was attacked reminds me of those crimes.
Let’s jump...
By 2001 I had already spent a couple of years researching Jack Abramoff and his efforts to protect the system of sweatshops, labor abuse and human trafficking in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI), a US Territory in the Western Pacific just north of Guam.
It was the system of organized labor abuse—the sweatshops, the brothels, the stolen labor, stolen wages and on and on—that shocked me when I learned about it in 1998. This was happening under the American Flag and despite a real bi-partisan effort to end the abuse that began in 1991, on the morning of 9-11-2001 the system of abuse was stronger than ever.
The reason was Jack Abramoff, loyal bagman of the modern Republican Party and culture warrior of the Wing-nut movement. Jack was in with the Gingrich, DeLay, Bush, Rove wing of the GOP. His roots went back to Reagan, Iran-Contra, Ollie North and the young radical conservative movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
When Gingrich and the GOP won control of Congress in 1994 Abramoff came with them. He became the point of the spear for the K Street Project. He created a team of lobbyists made up of GOP staffers who would spend some time on the Hill and then train with Jack to learn how to convert their public service into cash and join an explosion of lobbyists polluting our politics. Working for Team Abramoff often began while you were in public service where you did favors for Team Abramoff until your moment to cash out came. Such was the case for Kevin Ring.
When he first started working with Team Abramoff he was on the staff of Congressman John Doolittle. Then he went to work for John Ashcroft. In 2000 he was ready to cash out and officially join Team Abramoff. When Jack moved his team to a new lobbying firm at the end of 2000, Ring went with him. Jack entrusted to Ring one of his most important clients—the sweatshop interests from the Marianas Island (or the Pirates of Saipan as I like to call them).
And that leads us to what Kevin Ring was doing as America was attacked eight years ago?
According to emails released by the CNMI Public Auditor he was working to protect sweatshops and human trafficking as the planes hit the Towers and another was on the way to the Pentagon.
Back in 2001 Republican Senator Frank Murkowski had introduced legislation that would have ended the labor abuse and human trafficking on the US Territory. And like every other time a real bipartisan effort to end the abuse that was launched between 1994 and 2003, Team Abramoff worked over-time to kill the efforts. On the morning of September 11, 2001 Kevin Ring had found a loophole to exploit in the Murkowski legislation that would make it seem that the reform legislation would let illegal aliens get Visas. For reasons that are way too long to explain here it was a brazenly cynical ploy.
By 9 am on September 11 most everybody in Washington and America knew we were under attack. I knew within minutes of the first plan hitting that we were under attack. When the second plane hit at 9:02 most folks dropped what they were doing. My printer deadline would wait for another day.
Now it could have been that Kevin Ring was working in an isolation tank in one of the largest lobbying firms in Washington DC and I suppose it is possible that nobody else in his office or any of his friends on the Hill sent him an email or called to give him a heads up after the first and then the second plan hit. It is possible, but I think very unlikely. He was online after all.
Nine minutes after the second tower is struck Ring sent this email to his contact in the CNMI:
----- Original Message ----
From: ringk@gtlaw.com
To: govcounsel@saipan.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 9:11 AM
Subject: help
During our correspondence a while back about the Murkowski bill, S. 507, I told you that we had heard concerns about the provision in the bill that would allow investors in the CNMI to acquire E-2 visas (and therefore to enter the United States). The bill said such visas would be limited to those people who were considered long-term investors under CNMI law. At the time, you told me that "long-term investor status" is a term not even defined in the CNMI. I would like to confirm with you that this is correct, and if so, to get your approval to use the following sentence in a letter to the Hill:
While the drafters of S, 507 believe the E-2 loophole is narrow in that
it applies only to those aliens who qualify for "long term investor status" in the Commonwealth (Section 6(e)(I)(A», the CNMI Attorney General states that the term "long term investor status" is not defined in CNMI statutes or regulations.
Please let me know as soon as possible if it is okay for us to reference you and this view as stated above. Thanks.
This would be very helpful in our efforts to fight Murkowski's anti-CNMI bill.
A little later in the day he gets a response:
From: Maya B. Kara [govcounsel@saipan.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 5:20 PM
To: ringk@gtlaw.com
Subject: Foreign Investor Status
Everything you need to know about the regulation of foreign investment is at
4 CMC 5901 et seq. (I believe you have a set of NMI Codes.) Basically there are 3 types of foreign investment permits:
1.Regular term business certificate (12 mos). See 4 CMC 5931 et seq;
- Long Term Business Certificate (2 yrs). See 4 CMC 5941 et seq.
- Foreign Investment Certificate (indefinite term). See 4 CMC 5951 et seq. (PIs note that this time of certificate is rarely used. The Dept of Commerce informed me that there are less than 50 holders.)
It is unclear what the Miller bill contemplates under "foreign investor status."
By the way remember, I am no longer either the AG or with the AGO..
Therefore, if you are to represent them as having any position on this matter, you would have to check with them.
Let me know if you need more.
Maya
After the Pentagon was hit it became clear that DC was shutting down. Everybody was in shock. I found my way out of the city and finally connected with my wife who had left NYC by train that morning. For most folks working in DC or NYC it took us several days or into the next week to get back to work. Kevin Ring was back working in less than 48 hours after the attack. The work of protecting sweatshops and human trafficking can not be sidetracked by a mere National emergency. Early in the morning of September 13 he sent out a chastising email to his CNMI contact:
----- Original Message ----
From:ringk@gtlaw.com
To: govcounsel@saipan.com
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 6:23 AM
Subject: RE: Foreign Investor Status
I am not referring to the Miller bill, but the Murkowski bill. Please let me know who in the AG's office I can contact. This is a critical matter.
She quickly response and exhibits some human awareness (emphasis added) of 9-11 that Kevin Ring seemed to lack in his zeal to protect the sweatshops of Saipan:
From: Maya B. Kara [govcounsel@saipan.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 10:34 AM
To: ringk@gtlaw.com
Re: Foreign Investor Status
Kevin:
Sorry, I meant the Murkowski bill. I have been somewhat rattled by current events.
In any case the relevant issue is the meaning of "long term investor status." I think you can safely represent that there is no such definition under CNMI law. It could mean either a holder of a "long term business certificate" which is good for 2 years or the holder of a "foreign investment certificate" which is indefinite and good for as long as the holder complies with the terms and laws governing it. Thus, the term "long term investor status is vague at best.
I am trying to get a hold of the AAG (Andrew Clayton) who is assigned to these matters to confirm my analysis.
I will let you know asap.
Maya
Kevin Ring is a man with ice in his veins. While we were under attack he kept his focus of protecting human trafficking, protecting what is essentially modern slavery—such a nice guy. I’m Glad to see his trial start today.
There is a nice write-up about it in Washingon Post and the Legal Times gives you an idea of the opening arguments:
Prosecutors called former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring "a lobbyist in name but a corruptor in practice" today during opening statements in the 38-year-old’s criminal trial. [snip]
"It was not a cup of coffee, it was not a box of donuts," Edmonds said of the gifts. "It was basically an unlimited expense account."
Ring is the first of Abramoff’s former colleagues to stand trial during the Justice Department’s long-running corruption probe into the disgraced lobbyist. Sixteen people have pleaded guilty to charges. [snip]
Today, Abramoff’s name seemed to pop up nearly as frequently as Ring’s. Edmonds used the phrase "team Abramoff" no less than a dozen times, describing the group of lobbyists the former Republican power broker assembled at Washington’s Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds and later Greenberg Traurig. [snip]
Ring’s attorney Michael Wise, a partner at Miller & Chevalier, told the jury that while they would "hear about things that make a mockery of what good government should be," his client had not committed a crime.
It looks like Kevin Ring has decided on a "everybody does it" defense crossed with a "the things I did should be illegal, but technically they aren’t" defense.
What else can the scumbag do?
Now for months, the very best reporting on the Abramoff scandal is being done by a blogger out of Tom DeLay’s old district in Texas. I can not recommend highly enough the work of the Anti-Corruption Republican. This is the blog-based reporting at its best. Hell, it is far better coverage on the Ring trial and the various aspects of the scandal than you’ll find anywhere else. The Ring Trial will be going on for the next few weeks. I encourage you to bookmark the Anti-Corruption Republican and visit it often. The posts and the comments are very informative.
I was reading the blog earlier this evening when I read about the opening statement of Ring’s attorney:
"You are going to hear about things that absolutely should be crimes, but they were not..."
The opening statement of Ring’s attorney reminded me of these Ring/CNMI emails that started on 9-11-2001. And that reminded me that there are crimes that Ring was involved in that will never be brought to Justice.
The horrible truth is that most of the real crime committed by Ring, Abramoff and the rest will never be prosecuted. The victims of their crimes will never be made whole. They will not know justice. These victims are the thousands of workers abused in the sweatshops of Saipan between 1994 and 2003. These are the thousands of "guest workers" in the CNMI who had their labor stolen for meager wages that more often than not were never paid. Worst of all are the hundreds, if not thousands, of young girls (and sometimes young boys) forced into the global sex trade through the system of human trafficking protected by Kevin Ring, Jack Abramoff and their corrupt gang of lobbyists and public officials.
It is too bad that Buddhi Lal Dhimal isn’t still alive to see this moment of justice. You may remember him if you’ve been reading my Diaries for a while. Back in 2007 I wrote Why Did He Set Himself on Fire Today?
Buddhi was a CNMI guest worker from Nepal trapped in the Kafkaesque Hell also known as the CNMI labor system. It is a system of organized abuse that Kevin Ring worked so hard to protect. In 2007 Buddhi was trying to collect thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. He had a Judgment from a CNMI court that said he was owed the money, but a local labor system that made it impossible for him to collect. And then they told him to report to the CNMI Labor office so they could deport him (without his money) because the employer who had stolen his labor and wages hadn’t renewed his guest worker permit. In an act of desperate protest Buddhi went to the labor office, poured a flammable liquid over his body and set himself on fire. Later he died. Another victim of the work of Team Abramoff and Kevin Ring and another crime these bastards will get away with. The impact of Team Abramoff on the people of the Marianas Islands—both natives and guest workers—is horrifically chronicled at the excellent blog Unheard No More. There you can read about the real impact of the crimes of Kevin Ring and Team Abramoff and the system of abuse they cynically protected.
The CNMI labor system Ring and the gang protected had a documented dark side, a by-product of rapes, beatings, enslavement and forced abortions that have been detailed in report after report by human rights activists and in US Government reports. Discrediting this evidence was a big part of the work Team Abramoff did for their clients in the CNMI. And Kevin Ring led the team that did this shameful work.
Kevin Ring is not a fellow who did what every lobbyist in town did. He is something far, far worse than that. His work was not just about money for a road project here or a jail there. His work was about protecting massive human rights abuses, sweatshops and human trafficking. There are real victims of his work as a lobbyist. Some have died, many have been scarred for life. The lucky only had their labor stolen. If the DOJ can put Ring in jail for trading Heavy Metal Concert tickets for earmarks, I say more power to them. I hope and pray that justice will be done and Kevin Ring will be convicted. If it does, Ring will be like Al Capone, a real scumbag who finally got caught for one of his minor criminal offenses.
It is fitting that his trial starts on 9-11. It is a good day for the enemies of America and the rule of law to finally meet justice.
Cheers