This post over at Udall V Schaffer should be higher on google's search list for Bob Schaffer. In short:
President Bush today signed a bill that overwhelmingly passed both houses of Congress to extend U.S. labor law to the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. In the most notorious Washington lobbying scandal in recent history, the islands hired jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff to represent them in opposing the change, and Abramoff enlisted the help of Republican members of Congress including Bob Schaffer, who carried out a strategy that had been literally designed by Abramoff himself.
Here's a little bit more on Bob Schaffer from across the blogosphere. I'll be on the Mario Solis-Marich show again this evening on AM760 talking about Schaffer. Mario's show is live in the Denver area from 4-7pm.
First there's
Wendy Doromal at Unheard No More who is the longtime CNMI Human Rights worker. Wendy recently received the Spirit of Service Award from the Corporation for National and Community Service Learn and Serve America from Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Then there's dengre who's been following Abramoff since 1999. His DailyKos blog post last night quotes Wendy heavily. I can't do either of these posts justice. You simply must read them in their damning entirety. Here's just a taste:
The Global Survival Network brought Nousher to Washington, D.C. to testify at the September 16, 1999 House Committee Hearing. At around 12:30am on the morning of the hearing, I was awakened by a call from Nousher. He was very concerned that Congressman Bob Schaffer had called him earlier that evening to quiz him about how he got to Washington, DC, what kind of visa he had, what he was doing in the states, who helped him write his testimony and similar questions. I thought it was very unusual that a U.S. Congressman would call a witness before a hearing. I had never heard of this before.
The September 16, 1999 hearing was a total mockery of justice. I planned on going, but canceled my flight because a hurricane was set to hit the East Coast. Nousher told me he was drilled relentlessly by Schaffer with questions about federal officials, Department of Interior officials, who paid for protests conducted by guest workers in Saipan. The transcript of the hearing reveals that House Resources Committee Chair Don Young, and members Bob Schaffer and John Doolittle turned the hearing upside down by following the memo's strategy of going after Mr. Stayman and other DOI officials, while ignoring the purpose of the hearing.
"We intend to use the hearings to impeach Stayman and his campaign against the CNMI," Abramoff wrote in a 1998 memo to Willie Tan, a garment manufacturing mogul who operated a number of plants on the islands. The Office of Insular Affairs, "led by Stayman, has been the main source of difficulty for the CNMI," the memo said.
Schaffer had enthusiastically enacted Abramoff's strategy in a 1999 hearing. Schaffer charged that Office of Internal Affairs officials had secretly paid laborers to participate in a protest against conditions on the islands when the Abramoff-organized Congressional delegation (including Schaffer) arrived.
Part 2 of my investigation should be up in another day or two. Drip, drip.....drip
Lynn Bartels has a followup where Schaffer actually speaks for the first time. That sure took a while.
A welcoming committee wanted to take Schaffer to his hotel, he said, but he prevailed. He said he found women working in a "sweatshop," and demanded leaders of the Northern Mariana Islands investigate.
"I was told that shortly after I left (the Marianas) that the factory was shut down," he said Friday, stressing he never verified the information.
But, last time he said they were all happy and smiling. This is the first we're all hearing of this amazing progress from his fact finding mission. I await the newspaper stories about the closing of said factory. Of course maybe this is just another case not being terribly engaged.
Schaffer again insists this was a fact-finding mission -- a mission paid for by the Traditional Value Coalition. I'm sure they're not concerned with forced abortions or say sex slavery are they? This report (hat tip to Talking Points Memo) came out from the Department of Labor a year before Schaffer's trip.
far more below the fold
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