I have been busy.
I’ve had very little time to write. Research has taken the priority.
This fall there will be important elections: the House, the Senate, a number of Governors, and other Statewide races.
The seeds of the "50 State Strategy" are sprouting. In 2006 we were able to create competitive races in Republican "safe zones". We won some of those races and laid the groundwork for future success.
2008 could be even better.
The Culture of Corruption still fuels the Republican Party. Candidate after candidate lives in the fear of Jack Abramoff’s shadow. They live in the fear that their ties to the scandal will become known.
I’ve been working to make sure that those connections and those stories are uncovered, shared and make their way into the narrative of 2008.
The list is growing. I’ve been talking with some campaigns (and invite others to get in touch). In 2006 we defeated 20 of the Abramoff 65. Of the survivors, most are still on the list for 2008.
They are being joined others.
Three are running for President. Unfortunately, one of them is a Democrat.
To the jump...
Almost two years ago, I laid out the criteria I used to place a candidate for office into Jack Abramoff’s shadow:
To make this list, a Republican candidate had to have multiple points of contact with Jack Abramoff, his team and/or his clients. I paid special attention to contacts involving Jack’s work to protect the system of sweatshops, human trafficking, force prostitution and forced abortion on the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands (CNMI) for fun, power and profit.
I looked across six main areas of contact between Abramoff and the GOP. Here they are:
1: Money
Candidates with contributions directly from Jack and the other lobbyists from his team (Scanlon, Rudy, Volz, Buckham, Ring and Safavian) and their spouses/family made the list. And so did the folks who pocketed contributions from the Tan Family and the sweatshop lobby on Saipan. Over the last 10 years this small part of the GOP slush fund Abramoff managed moved $825,192 in recorded donations to Republican candidates.
It is a very small fraction of the money Abramoff’s GOP slush fund moved to the GOP, but it does point to Jack’s Team of elected officials.
And I looked at even more donations from the Slush Funds main lobbying firms (Preston Gates, Alexander Strategy, Greenburg Traurig and more). Then there were all the contributions from Abramoff’s other clients and the clients of Abramoff trained lobbyists.
Another source of funds I looked for was GOP Leadership PAC donations, especially the ones funded by Abramoff, his team and his clients. And candidates who got money from Leadership PACs controlled by Jack’s inner circle of Congressmen and Senators stood a good chance of making the list. Under the GOP the Leadership PACs work as a series of connected washing machines to launder money to hide pay-offs for earmarks and other favors. Abramoff and Duke Cunningham are just the tip of the iceberg ripping through Capital Hill.
Another source of funds was the $13.5 million that Jack and the slush fund ran through the stealth GOP PAC, United Seniors Association in 2002. The backdoor donations were used to support 25 GOP candidates in that mid-term election. There were (and are) quite a few of these GOP controlled Stealth PACs.
In addition to the FEC reported donations there are also solid reports of some off-the-books donations, trips, freebies, meals and jobs for family and friends of elected officials and their staffs. Candidate tied to Jack through creative financial reimbursements always made the list.
2: Staff Connections
Abramoff was the point of the spear for the K Street Project. He trained a generation of GOP lobbyists and staffers in his way of doing "business". He was also a legendary head of the College Republicans in the early 1980s. In his lobbying days, Jack always made time to mentor the youngsters at the CRNC.
Candidates who had a staffer who went to work for Jack, or one of Jack’s Team members who went to work the candidate made the list. So did those with ties to Jack through their College Republican days. And the candidates whose staff took trips on Jack’s dime to the Marianas Islands (and other destinations) made the list.
If you want to see if a particular GOP candidate has an Abramoff connection, a good place to start is a list of their staff members over the years. Almost everybody on Team Abramoff (except Jack) spent time on Capital Hill. Feel free to send me a list of staff members for any of the 53 or any other candidates who should be added to the list.
3: Travels with Jack
Abramoff used travel. It started back in the 1980s and it never stopped. By some accounts over 100 Congressmen and their staffers traveled to CNMI between 1996 and 1999. The actual number is much higher, especially when you look for travel between 1995 and 2004.
Almost every scam in Jack's portfolio involved trips and how to hide the payment, purpose and travelers from required disclosure. If a candidate or their staff was cited in published reports or other records as traveling on Jack’s dime or to support Jack’s clients they made the list, especially if they took the junket to the Marianas Islands.
4: The Public Record
There is a rich public record of Abramoff’s connections to GOP Candidates in this cycle. Some are reports after Abramoff’s fall from grace in 2004. Others are reports from 1980 through January 2004 when Jack was at the height of his power. Candidates with long time ties to Abramoff through these reports made the list. So did the candidates who traveled to the Marianas Islands to support the GOP’s Hong Kong based sweatshop owning patrons who run the US Territory as a feudal fiefdom. The local press on Saipan and Guam reported many connections to Abramoff, especially the Tan Family’s newspaper, the Saipan Tribune.
The reports and records of human rights workers trying to end the abuse on CNMI was another source. Candidates who made these reports as sweatshop protectors made the list.
And then there is the Congressional record and transcripts of many hearings, as well as some legal documents.
If you know something in the public record that connect a candidate to Abramoff let me know, especially if I’ve left them off the list.
5: Billing Records/Emails
There are thousands of pages of emails, memos and other records related to Abramoff’s lobbying work. Some have been released. Some have not. The Indian Affairs Committee reviewed over 80,000 pages of documents and released around 2,000 pages of documents and testimony. While these were scrubbed to protect Republican Members of Congress, the Senate and George Bush, there are still quite a few documents that connected some members to Abramoff, especially when compared with other bits of information.
A better set of documents is the billing records and emails for Jack’s lobbying work for the CNMI Government. These records were collected as part of a 2001 audit of all the lobbying expenses that the CNMI government paid for between 1994 and the end of 2001. The audit was done by the CNMI Office of Public Auditor (OPA) and the records were released to various news outlets in the last couple of years. I have a set.
The billing records are day by day details of Team Abramoff’s efforts to protect sweatshops and shower their Chinese Patrons with favorable earmarks, appropriations and laws. If a candidate repeatedly made the Abramoff’s CNMI invoices, they made the list.
The CNMI invoices are incomplete. They represent only a fraction of Abramoff’s work. It is a core sample of how Lobbying in the Gingrich/DeLay/Bush era of incompetence and corruption is conducted. These are roadmaps of graft.
6: Congressional Favors
In a few cases the CNMI invoices or press reports have tied a candidate to an official action taken for Jack Abramoff. More often than not, the official action is only implied. In these cases I looked to see if a candidate was in a position to help Jack and his clients. If they were a member of DeLay’s House Leadership, on the Resources Committee, and/or on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (or the Senate equivalent) they stood a good chance of making the list, especially if the had Abramoff connections in other categories. The same is true of the Appropriations Committee and a few others on specific issues.
And then there is the hunt for the quid pro quo, the search for the payback. In 2001 alone it looks like Congress found an extra $28 million for various projects just on CNMI. There are a lot of earmarks to search through. And the CNMI was just one of Jack’s clients.
Abramoff could deliver massive amounts of dollars to an election cycle whenever and where ever the Party was in trouble. That gave him power and access. Candidates who were in a position to do Jack favors made the list. Especially when they were rewarded with donations and/or choice Committee assignments around the time of an action that helped Abramoff and his clients.
In the last two years, my knowledge of the scandal has deepened and there are new areas to explore. Many new scandal details have entered into the Public record.
As for the 2006 survivors of the Abramoff 65, some have been forced out, some have "retired" and others are running for a new office. Still, around 40 will make the 2008 list.
And then there are some who did not make the list in 2006 because they were not up for election in 2006, but are in 2008 (Bob Schaffer easily comes to mind). These will add a few more names to candidates under Jack’s shadow.
Then, there are the special cases: those folks running for President who are under Jack Abramoff’s shadow.
Of them all, John McCain is the worst. His Cover-up of the Abramoff scandal is a crime against America. I recently wrote about this in a Dairy (Jack Abramoff: John McCain’s other Lobbyist problem...).
McCain actively controlled the story and he put the investigation into slow motion. He ensured that the Abramoff Scandal was a not a factor in the 2004 election. Then he worked to ensured that voters would not know about how closely Abramoff, Rove and Bush worked together. Then McCain worked to actively limit the damage the Abramoff scandal had on the GOP in the 2006 election. And then he used his access to Jack’s little black book to discourage serious competition and build support for his 2008 run for the White House.
And in the process truth, honor and justice have become the victims of McCain’s ambition. An ambition that has led him to hide the most damning details of the Abramoff scandal:
Jack’s role as a 25-year bagman for the GOP: hidden.
Jack’s close working relationship with the Bush White House: hidden.
Jack’s close working relationship with the Republican Congressional Leadership: hidden.
Jack’s role in dirty tricks and off-the-books money for the GOP: hidden.
Jack’s role in Medicare reform: hidden.
Jack’s role energy policy: hidden.
Since McCain’s cover-up, the pace of abuse and human trafficking on the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) has increased. Tonight, there are young women being raped and forced into brothels, young women who might have avoided that fate if McCain had been willing to investigate the crimes instead of covering them up. He made the Abramoff case into a game and he has let the abuse continue—unobstructed and thriving in the shadows of corruption.
Even now, John McCain and his Republican Senate colleagues block legislation to end the abuse from coming to the Senate floor. McCain and his Party are without honor.
John McCain will top my list of the Abramoff connected in 2008. It is a place of shame he has more than earned.
The other Presidential candidates under Jack Abramoff’s shadow are more complicated.
First, the easy one: Ralph Nader.
Jack was the Bagman for the Republican Party. It was his job to get money to people and causes to help Republicans win elections. There is a clear record of Republicans supporting Ralph Nader’s run in 2000, but it was Jack who made the claim that he was working with Nader.
On June 29, 2001 Jack Abramoff gave a speech to the College Republican National Committee as part of their 2001 annual conference. At one point Jack was telling stories about what he did as head of the CRNC back in the early 1980s. He started to talk about their work to fight Nader support PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups) on College campuses. Then Jack added an aside:
"That was back in the day when Nader was fighting us and not working with us to throw elections..."
That got a laugh from the College Republicans and my attention.
There are two options here, either Abramoff was joking at Nader’s expense or Jack was telling the truth. Given what I know about Abramoff I would suspect the latter.
If (and when) all the books are opened I think we will find money from Abramoff and his pals funded Nader and his 2000 run at the White House.
I expect that funding Nader is part of the discussion in the 742,000 pages of suppressed Abramoff documents I’ve mentioned in other Diaries.
It is a standard Republican dirty trick to fund candidates who will hurt their stronger challengers. Bush needed Nader in the race in 2000—it was key to his 50+1 victory strategy. His father lost in 1992 because of a third party candidate who drew away Republican leaning voters. Nader was their insurance policy. All they had to do was take advantage of Nader's ego. And that was, and still is, easy.
Based on what I know about Jack, Karl, Grover and the gang, the thought of using Nader to help elect Bush would have been an irresistible investment of time, money and dirty tricks. It was a twofer—a way of to stick it to both Nader and Gore at the same time.
I do not expect Nader is involved, or that he was even aware of their help. I do think that he accepted the money with doing due diligence with regards to its source.
It was green and it made Ralph the unwitting left flank of the Republican Party in 2000.
This puts Ralph under Jack’s shadow, but not enough for me to include him on the list.
Senator Clinton is another matter.
In 1995 she was at a fundraiser on Guam and took $25,000 from the Tan Family for the DNC. It was a mini-scandal at the time and it waits in the wings for the press and the GOP to resurrect if she becomes our nominee.
The Hong Kong based Tan Family is behind most of the worst labor violations and corruption on the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a US Territory 40 miles north of Guam. Accepting their money ties Senator Clinton to that corruption.
Those who dig a little deeper know about the deep ties between the Republican Party and the Tan Family. They know about more than $250,000 in recorded donations to Republican candidates from Tan Family members, employees and companies between 1996 and 2004. They know about the $223,679 paid by the Tan Family to help Jack maintain his multiple sports arena skyboxes in 2000.
Then there are the funds buried and barely reported that moved from the Tan Family through the Abramoff/DeLay network, such as $1.4 million from the Rose Garden Holding Co. (http://www.dccc.org/stakeholder/archives/004226.html) and the $2.35 million that flowed through the Tan Family controlled Western Pacific Economic Council.
One could also safely include the $620,000 from the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association and I firmly believe that the Tan Family was the driving force behind the CNMI Government sending Jack another $8,471,131. And then there is the very odd story of an address in Hong Kong that was used by Team Abramoff, the "Baby Jacks" (like the Alexander Strategy Group) and several other members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy as a money drop and House of scandal.
The rough total that the Tan Family moved for the GOP through their bagman, Jack Abramoff was over $13.25 million. They used much of this money to fund off-the-books operations like New Hampshire phone jamming and other operations designed to rig elections, "elect" Republicans and support the effort to establish one-Party rule in the USA.
And that is just the surface of what is known.
In 1992, the Tan Family received the largest fine in US Labor Department history, $9 million, for their sweatshops—and it came from the Bush I Administration. The Family’s sweatshops were fined another $1.3 million for other violations (Sweating it out in Saipan is a good overview of the company from the Hong Kong Standard).
When they gave Hillary Clinton $25,000 of soft money in 1995, they were already working with Abramoff. They were trying to get sweatshops established on Guam. After the scandal broke in the press, the Clinton Administration shut down the effort to allow CNMI style sweatshops on Guam. Bill Clinton had been burned by the Tan Family and from that moment, his administration fought to end the abuse on the CNMI. The effort failed in the "noise" of the Impeachment/Ken Starr follies (another Abramoff triumph).
One would think that the Clintons would know exactly who the Tan Family were and why one should avoid them as donors—especially after the Abramoff scandal broke and the Family was mentioned over and over and over again as key players in the bad doings of Jack and his team.
And yet, in 2005, Senator Clinton accepted $10,000 from these well-known sweatshop owners and patrons of Jack Abramoff.
Here is the dirty cash that ties Senator Clinton to sweatshops, labor abuse and Jack Abramoff:
KIM LAM, PEK, Homemaker; 9/30/2005; $2,000
TAN, JOISE, N/A/Homemaker; 10/2/2005; $2,000
TAN, RAYMOND, Luen Thai/President; 9/30/2005; $2,000
TAN, SIU L, Tan Holdings Corp./Chairman; 9/30/2005; $2,000
TAN, WILLIE, Luen Thai/COO; 9/30/2005; $2,000
This is corrupt and dirty money that the Tan Family earned through sweatshops and human trafficking, but there is more.
A few years ago, the Tan Family created a multi-national Corporation, Luen Thai to expand the reach of their business and give it a patina of respectability. They specialize in helping brands "outsource" their textile manufacturing for profits.
The head of Luen Thai USA is a fellow named Richard Helfenbein. Along with his family, he has added another $16,000 of Tan Family money to Senator Clinton’s campaigns.
If I found ANY Republican with these solid connections to the Tan Family, they would be high on the list of the Abramoff connected in any election year. I have never seen the Tan Family give a donation without the expectation of a return on their "investment". Perhaps Senator Clinton is the exception to the rule—but my research has led me to doubt it.
And that places me in a dilemma.
What if she becomes the Nominee of the Democratic Party?
Do I sweep her connection to the corruption under the rug? Shall I pretend not to see it?
I have asked her various campaigns to return or explain this money for almost two years. They do not care—not about this money and not about the victims still suffering on the CNMI. These workers and women are invisible to her.
But she is not alone; they are invisible to most of America. But most American’s have an excuse not to know about the CNMI, Senator Clinton does not.
I hope Barack Obama will become our Nominee. It would be nice to go into November with a Nominee free of Jack Abramoff’s shadow. He can take McCain to task for the Abramoff cover-up and challenge his life-long history of situational "ethics".
Senator Clinton can not.
I wish that Senator Clinton did not have the sweatshop tainted cash. I wish she was not the only Democrat to get money from a Family that moved millions of off-the-books dollars to the GOP through Jack Abramoff.
I wish it was not true, but it is.
As I compile the list of 2008 Candidates connected to Abramoff, I would like to have a Democrat-free list. If Senator Clinton is our Nominee, the list will be a lot of Republicans and one Democrat.
That would suck.
I hope I will not have to face that reality.
Time will tell.
Cheers