Jack Abramoff

Investigators Probing Other Former DoJ Officials

Paul Kiel | April 28, 2008, 12:34PM

Last week, Robert Coughlin, the former chief of the criminal division at the Justice Department pleaded guilty to conflict of interest charges. Filings by prosecutors showed that Coughlin served as an inside man for Jack Abramoff's associate Kevin Ring.

As part of his plea deal, Coughlin has agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors in the continuing investigation. But it wasn't clear from his plea whom Coughlin might be able to finger. Legal Times reports that prosecutors are looking elsewhere in the Justice Department:

A source familiar with the Abramoff probe says the Justice Department is continuing to investigate other former Justice officials. Coughlin and at least two other unnamed Justice officials helped secure a $16.3 million grant for Ring's client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, court documents say. A deputy assistant attorney general had previously approved $9 million for the tribe. One unanswered question is which official at the department overruled that decision, giving the tribe the full amount.

Jack Abramoff

Schaffer Echoed DeLay on Mariana Immigration

Paul Kiel | April 25, 2008, 2:13PM

You know that Bob Schaffer thinks he's getting a bum rap. The Colorado Republican Senate candidate says he's never met Jack Abramoff, but more than anything, he says his comments that launched the controversy were taken out of context.

Speaking to a talk radio host earlier this week, Schaffer said that he hadn't said that "I endorse everything that goes on in the [Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands]" -- meaning forced abortions, and other human rights abuses. He'd meant "a very narrow aspect of the CNMI's, of the commonwealth's, immigration process, and that was a pre-process of qualifying foreign labor in their home country before they're given entry visas to set foot on American soil."

And that's true, sort of. In his original comments to The Denver Post, Schaffer had been asked about guest-worker programs. And as a successful model for the U.S., he'd pointed to the Marianas, saying "prequalifying foreign workers in their home country under private- sector management" works "very well" there.

It was a comment that mirrored those of ex-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), Jack Abramoff's staunchest ally in Congress, ten years before. From The Houston Chronicle in 1998:

Rather than impose more regulation on the [Marianas], DeLay said, the United States ought to adopt the islands' business and labor practices by creating a guestworker program of its own 'where particular companies can bring Mexican workers in' to fill jobs that Americans won't take. DeLay said the workers could be paid at 'whatever wage the market will bear.'

DeLay had just returned from a tour of the Marianas, where he'd rung in the New Year. Abramoff, of course, had organized the trip, and his clients, the Marianas government and garment manufacturers there, had paid for it. In an interview with the Chronicle, "Delay said he saw nothing wrong with accepting the trip, and said Abramoff, who went on the trip as well, was just 'doing his job (as a lobbyist).'" DeLay remains under federal investigation for his ties to Abramoff.

Beyond the free trips, the Marianas' reliance on private sector management had a clear philosophical appeal to conservatives which Abramoff was keen to exploit. But doing so meant ignoring a host of evidence and findings that the Marianas' guest worker system was at the heart of the abuses there.

A report by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1997, for instance, did not find that the system was working "very well" there.

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Must Read

Today's Must Read

Paul Kiel | April 23, 2008, 10:08AM

People have been giving Bob Schaffer, the Republican candidate for Senate in Colorado, a hard time about his advocacy on behalf of the Northern Mariana Islands. But Schaffer thinks it's about time to give credit where credit is due: after all, he braved an interminable flight to the end of the earth to investigate human rights abuses.

But the trip was organized by Jack Abramoff, you might say, and has been demonstrated to have been just another cog in Abramoff's lobbying strategy. Abramoff's goal was to keep the federal government from spoiling the Marianas' "perfect petri dish of capitalism," and a key tactic was to attack Clinton's Interior Department to distract from the human rights abuses on the islands. Schaffer was a more than willing participant.

Schaffer took to the airwaves earlier this week to air his grudges on a local conservative talk radio program. The Denver Post had done him wrong, he said, by covering the issue with such clear bias.

But more than anything, he's not getting credit for going where so few other lawmakers dared to go:

And by the way, I'll tell you there's 435 members of Congress, these reports had been in circulation throughout the 90s, and there weren't very many who went and investigated them the way I did. I don't owe anybody any ... any kind of remorse or regret for investigating these abuses firsthand....

This is a controversial issue, this island has been at the source of great political conflict for quite a long time, on a number of levels, not just these allegations of sweatshops and so on, but there's a big political controversy taking place there about the sovereignty and relative independence that this commonwealth has compared to other states, or even compared to other U.S. protectorates.

So, a lot of people in Congress would walk away from that and not even look into it because of the controversy. I frankly didn't care, and went and saw what I saw, and followed my own instincts and inclinations based on both favorable and unfavorable reports about the island.

Of course, this might carry more heft if Abramoff hadn't been constantly ferrying lawmakers, staffers, and their families over to the Marianas in the late nineties -- some 85 people in all by mid-2000. It turns out that it wasn't that hard to lure people over for a free trip to tropical islands.

Abramoff didn't sponsor all the trips. Like, say, the one taken by then-Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK), who returned outraged by the conditions there and spent the next several years trying to pass a bill to reform the labor and immigration laws on the Marianas (Abramoff was able to block it with the help of his House Republican friends). But somehow those who took the Abramoff organized trips didn't come back so angry.

Omitting the fact that documents show that he knew Abramoff's lobbying firm had made the travel arrangements for his trip, Schaffer says that nobody led him around by the nose while he was on the islands. It was five days of unfettered and unrelenting access, he says:

Nobody led me around there, nobody showed me a sanitized version of what they wanted me to see. My wife and I, and a staffer, and the two individuals from the Family Values Coalition led an investigation according to what I as the member of Congress thought was the best way to spend five days.

We worked around the clock by the way and conducted dozens and dozens of interviews, both on-site and off-site.

Ignore that picture of him parasailing with his wife during his visit there and it's an inspiring evocation.

You can read a full transcript of portions of the interview below. The audio is here.

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Jack Abramoff

CHA-CHING!!!

Paul Kiel | April 22, 2008, 4:48PM

You can always count on Jack Abramoff's crew for subtlety.

As part of the guilty plea of Robert Coughlin, the former Justice Department official, prosecutors filed a document that lays out the mutually profitable relationship between Kevin Ring, Abramoff's associate, and Coughlin. You can read that here.

Coughlin got $6,180 worth of meals, drinks and sports tickets, prosecutors say, and Ring got a constant inside stream of information from DoJ. The filing lays out a laundry list of Coughlin's favors. If Abramoff's team needed information about his tribal clients, a corporate transaction, or something to do with speeding along permits for Abramoff's Jewish prep school, Coughlin was there.

Coughlin was particularly helpful with getting the Mississippi Choctaw the full $16 million for a jail-construction grant that that had been promised via an earmark. The jail was one of the main priorities for Abramoff's team between 2001-2002, as they fought the Justice Department's determination that the Choctaw, a very wealthy tribe, didn't need the funds.

Coughlin was there to warn Ring that a DoJ official handling the matter had "Democratic political leanings" and so couldn't be trusted to be helpful, according to the filing, and to otherwise advise Ring who the "friendlies" were at DoJ. He also showed up at a DoJ meeting along with Ring, because, as Ring wrote in an email, "it would be good if you were there so some of the clowns there know that I have friends, if you get my drift."

Finally, possibly with the intervention of a "high-ranking DoJ official" (it's not clear), the full $16 million was released. Ring was elated, writing "CHA-CHING!!!" in an email.

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Jack Abramoff

Former DOJ Official Pleads Guilty to Abramoff-Related Charge

Paul Kiel | April 22, 2008, 2:46PM

As expected, Robert Coughlin, formerly deputy chief of staff of the Justice Department's criminal division, pleaded guilty today to taking all sorts of goodies from Jack Abramoff and his associate, Kevin Ring:

Robert Coughlin admitted in federal court Tuesday that he accepted meals, concert tickets and luxury seats at sporting events from a lobbyist. He pleaded guilty to a single conflict-of-interest charge and faces up to 10 months in prison under a plea deal with the government.

Coughlin's next court date is September 18th.

Update: Coughlin has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors as part of his guilty plea, the AP reports.

Update: The only comment from Coughlin's lawyer, Joshua Berman, was that Coughlin "is deeply saddened by these events and looks forward to focusing his attention on his family and moving forward with his life."

Update: So what did Ring and Abramoff hope they'd get for all those blandishments? The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Ring asked for Coughlin's help "freeing up a $16 million jail-construction grant Congress earmarked for the Mississippi Choctaw Indian tribe."

The jail was one of the main priorities for Abramoff's team between 2001-2002, as they fought the Justice Department's determination that the Choctaw, a very wealthy tribe, didn't need the funds. The team ultimately approached Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman in an attempt to get the Choctaw their money (see much more on this, including the emails, here). Abramoff ultimately won, avoiding what would have been "SUCH a HUGE embarrassment."

Jack Abramoff

Former DoJ Official to Plead Guilty in Abramoff Investigation

Paul Kiel | April 21, 2008, 3:53PM

From the AP:

A former high-ranking Justice Department official is being accused of criminal conflict of interest in the latest case stemming from the investigation of disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Robert Coughlin was deputy chief of staff of the Justice Department's criminal division before his resignation a year ago.

In court papers filed Monday in federal court in Washington, prosecutors accused Coughlin of providing assistance to a lobbyist and the lobbyist's firm while receiving gifts from the firm and discussing prospective employment there. The lobbyist isn't named but The Associated Press has previously reported that Coughlin was lobbied during the period in question by Kevin Ring, a member of Abramoff's lobbying team who also is under investigation.

Update: The filing today is a criminal information, meaning that Coughlin will very likely be pleading guilty sometime soon. We'll have that document up soon.

Coughlin stepped down about a year ago as the investigation of Kevin Ring, a former DoJ official and aide to Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), was heating up.

Update: Here is the charge filed today, which has very little in the way of facts about what Coughlin might be admitting. As I said, it's an information, which means that a guilty plea is likely to follow.

Update: The Washington Post reported last year that Coughlin, who worked with Ring on John Ashcroft's Senate staff, had accepted tickets to sporting events from Ring, who was by then one of Jack Abramoff's closest associates. Those coveted skybox seats, remember, constituted one of Abramoff's prime means of wooing lawmakers and staffers. Coughlin worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at the time. It looks from the information that Ring and Abramoff also talked to Coughlin about working for Abramoff after Coughlin was done with public service.

When Coughlin later moved to the criminal division, the DoJ said that he recused himself from any dealings with the Abramoff investigation.

Jack Abramoff

Schaffer: What Forced Abortions? I Didn't See Any Forced Abortions

Paul Kiel | April 21, 2008, 12:39PM

Bob Schaffer's Jack Abramoff problem isn't going away.

Ever since the Colorado Republican Senate candidate declared that he thought the guest worker system used in the Northern Mariana Islands was so great that it ought to be exported to the mainland, the media has been on his back. And now a conservative organization has jumped into the fray, a spokesman for Colorado's Right to Life telling The Denver Post that Schaffer's boosterism for the Marianas meant he was no pro-life advocate: "The pro-life movement will no longer give a pass to candidates like Bob Schaffer who look the other way when Chinese women are forced to abort their children."

Schaffer's response to the comment was twofold. First, he made clear that he didn't question the veracity of federal investigations that found instances of Chinese guest workers being forced to get abortions. But he wants everyone to know that he did his due diligence as a crack investigator when he went on his trip to the islands in 1999 -- which was organized and managed by Jack Abramoff, the Northern Mariana Islands government, and the garment manufacturers. And, try as he might, he just couldn't find any evidence of it:

Schaffer, who visited the Marianas in 1999 while in Congress, said allegations of forced abortions were among the things he looked into on that trip.

"I absolutely did not look the other way on this issue," Schaffer said, saying he interviewed "dozens" of workers and met with local religious leaders about the topic....

Schaffer said during his visit he tried to determine how often abortions occurred.

"In five days, I did not observe a forced abortion or meet anybody who had any knowledge of them," he said, adding that no subsequent examples were ever brought to him.

The comment from Colorado's Right to Life has sparked something of an intra-pro-life activist battle, with Colorado's Citizens for Life calling Colorado's Right to Life's criticism "simply irrational."

Jack Abramoff

In 2000 Hearing, Schaffer Executed Abramoff Lobbying Strategy -- Again

Paul Kiel | April 15, 2008, 6:46PM

Add this to the growing catalog of former U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer's actions on behalf of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Jack Abramoff's longtime client. In a July 2000 House resources committee hearing, Schaffer -- now a GOP candidate for U.S. senator from Colorado -- took the lead in interrogating two officials from the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs about alleged political activities on the job.

One of those officials was Allen Stayman, formerly the director of the Office of Insular Affairs in the Interior Department, and, as a persistent proponent of increased federal regulation of immigration and labor conditions on the islands, Abramoff's nemesis.

"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.

The Abramoff strategy was still in effect in 2000. In a May 2000 billing statement to the Marianas, Abramoff wrote: "Continued close monitoring of OIA scandal developments and used opportunities thus provided to advance CNMI arguments against [legislation that would strengthen labor laws on the islands]."

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Jack Abramoff

Schaffer Played Attack Dog against Exploited Marianas Worker

Paul Kiel | April 14, 2008, 7:21PM

Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer swears he's never met Jack Abramoff. But his track record of serving as a key ally for one of Abramoff's star clients, the Northern Mariana Islands, makes it clear that the two had a surprising overlap of interests over a number of years.

This weekend, The Denver Post detailed how Schaffer had beautifully orchestrated Abramoff's lobbying strategy for the islands in a September, 1999 Congressional hearing.

Schaffer told the Post that his "were questions that occurred to me at the time listening to the testimony." But it's apparent from the course of the hearing that's not true.

In a 1998 memo, Abramoff had laid out that strategy, which concentrated on attacking Interior Department officials who had been advocating stricter immigration and labor laws on the islands. Flying lawmakers on junkets to the islands, Abramoff wrote, was "one of the most effective ways to build permanent friends on the Hill." The September hearing occurred just weeks after Schaffer's Abramoff-organized trip to the islands.

Perhaps even more remarkable, though, was the form that Schaffer's attack took against Interior officials. Human rights activists had arranged for Nousher Jahedi, a Bangladeshi laborer who'd been robbed by human traffickers on his way to the Northern Marianas, to appear at the hearing.

Schaffer's aggressive questioning of Jahedi brings to mind comments that Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) entered into the Congressional record in 1997 -- comments that were shown to have been prepared by Jack Abramoff. Hall said that one of the key test cases of abuse on the islands, the testimony of a fifteen year-old girl who'd been forced to work for a local nightclub, was being distorted. She "wanted to do nude dancing." Hall has also said he never met Abramoff.

In his prepared statement, Jahedi told the committee that he'd paid a $7,000 "recruitment fee" to get a job on the islands, a U.S. territory, but that his recruiter had robbed him of $1,700 at gunpoint in the Philippines, and then demanded an additional $29,000 when the group of Bangladeshis finally reached the islands. When they could not pay, they were turned loose and found themselves "homeless and destitute."

Schaffer led the questioning of Jahedi. In a clearly choreographed allotting of time by the Republican members of the committee, Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), a key Abramoff ally who chaired most of the hearing, ceded all of his questioning time for Schaffer to grill Jahedi.

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Jack Abramoff

Schaffer Staffer Mum on Ties to Marianas Gov

Paul Kiel | April 11, 2008, 10:43AM

Yesterday we detailed Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer's ties to the Northern Mariana Islands, Jack Abramoff's prize client, and particularly the islands' governor, Benigno Fitial.

The Denver Post followed up and put the question to Schaffer as to why he'd been so loyal to a little island territory thousands of miles away. The answer? Quit asking. From the Post:

Schaffer campaign manager Dick Wadhams declined Thursday to discuss his candidate's role in island politics. "The Denver Post continues its character assassination of Bob Schaffer," he said.

Jack Abramoff

Schaffer Was Key Ally for Marianas

Paul Kiel | April 10, 2008, 6:24PM

When Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer freely offered earlier this week that the Northern Mariana Islands, notorious for human rights abuses and sweatshops, were a great model for a nationwide guest worker program, it seemed to be coming out of the blue. But a look at Schaffer's time in the House (where he represented Colorado's 4th District from 1997 through 2003) shows that he was one of the most reliable allies for the islands, which were represented for most of that time by lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The Denver Post reported today on a trip Schaffer took to the islands in August of 1999. The trip was nominally funded by the Traditional Values Coalition, though like all the other junkets to the islands, it was really organized by Abramoff.

Schaffer's spokesman Dick Wadhams told the paper that Schaffer has never met Abramoff or spoken to Abramoff. But Schaffer was a remarkable ally for the islands nonetheless, especially for a lawmaker from Colorado. My call to the Schaffer campaign this afternoon was not returned.

In October of 1999, for instance, Schaffer wrote a letter to Ben Fitial praising him and endorsing him for election into the commonwealth's legislature. The letter, written on Congressional letterhead, was published in the islands' newspaper The Saipan Tribune alongside two other endorsements from Reps. John Doolittle (R-CA) and Don Young (R-AK) four days before the election. You can see those here. Doolittle is under investigation for his ties to Abramoff, and one of Young's former aides on the House transportation committee has pleaded guilty to taking bribes from Abramoff.

As has been reported, Fitial's election was crucial for Abramoff, who had recently lost the lobbying contract for the islands. After Fitial was elected, Abramoff sent two associates of then-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) to the islands in order to make sure that Fitial was elected Speaker. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2005 that Delay aide Michael Scanlon (who's since pleaded guilty as part of the Abramoff investigation) and former Delay aide-turned-lobbyist Ed Buckham (who remains under investigation for his ties to Abramoff) were able to convince two legislators to switch their votes to Fitial with promises of federal appropriations. Fitial subsequently led the effort to reinstate the contract with Abramoff.

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Jack Abramoff

Senate Passes Bill to Reform Immigration in Northern Mariana Islands

Paul Kiel | April 10, 2008, 4:43PM

Whoops. Just days after Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer touted the Northern Mariana Islands as a model for a national guest worker program, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass a massive omnibus bill that included a provision to overhaul the Marianas' immigration laws. The bill passed on a 91-4 vote.

The bill will extend U.S. immigration laws to the islands and establish a federally administered guest worker program there -- quite the opposite of what Schaffer said he thought ought to happen: "I think members of Congress ought to be looking at that model and be considering it as a possible basis for a nationwide program."

The reason for the overwhelming vote, of course, is because the islands are notorious for human rights abuses, particularly the exploitation of guest workers in slave labor conditions. Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, with the help of key House Republicans like ex-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), was able to squelch similar legislation for years, even despite bipartisan support in the Senate.

Of course one of his main tools for persuading lawmakers was sponsoring trips over to the islands. As The Denver Post detailed today, Schaffer, then a congressman, traveled there in 1999 in an Abramoff-planned trip and declared himself unconcerned with what he found: "The workers were smiling; they were happy." That's a picture from his visit above.

Update: Ouch. In a statement just out from Rep. George Miller (D-CA), who has been seeking to pass such legislation for literally a decade, he applauds passage of the bill and notes that with Abramoff and DeLay gone, "[v]ery few people would defend the status quo in the CNMI, which has done such damage to workers and their families over the years." Except Bob Schaffer.

Miller's full statement is below.

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Jack Abramoff

Bill to Reform Northern Marianas Moves to Senate

Paul Kiel | April 1, 2008, 3:37PM

Unbelievably, there's still some unfinished business from the Jack Abramoff years. From ABC News:

A bill to reform the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) immigration system will be introduced on the Senate Floor today, addressing more than a decade of mounting concerns about the exploitation of workers, sex trafficking and porous borders and years of political maneuvering by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"After fighting for these reforms for many years, we are now closing the legal loopholes that had allowed some of the poorest men and women to be abused and exploited in sweatshops in this American territory," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who has championed the fight for CNMI reform since the 1990s.

The bill would extend U.S. immigration laws to the CNMI and establish a federally administered guest worker program in the American territory.

If you're wondering where Abramoff is these days, he's still serving out his sentence for defrauding investors in his purchase of a fleet of gambling boats, but has yet to be sentenced for his bribes to lawmakers. That's because he's still cooperating with prosecutors, who've repeatedly requested a delay for his sentencing since he's got more to give (as Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and Tom DeLay know full well).