The Jack Abramoff CNMI scandal involved the efforts of Jack Abramoff, other lobbyists, and government officials to change or prevent, or both, Congressional action regarding the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and businesses on Saipan, its capital, commercial center, and one of its three principal islands.
Among the issues he worked on was keeping Congress from imposing the federal minimum wage for workers in the CNMI.
Abramoff took on the Northern Mariana Islands as a client in 1995. Abramoff and his law firm were paid at least $6.7 million by the CNMI government from 1995 to 2001. [1]
The CNMI is a US commonwealth and thus may apply the "Made in USA" label to goods manufactured on Saipan.
Frank Murkowski, then Republican Senator from Alaska and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, submitted a bill to extend the protection of U.S. minimum-wage labor laws to the workers in the CNMI.
In testimony before the United States Senate, it was described that 91% of the private-sector workforce were immigrants, and were being paid barely half the U.S. minimum hourly wage. Stories also emerged of workers forced to live behind barbed wire in squalid shacks without plumbing. A Department of the Interior report found that "Chinese women were subject to forced abortions and that women and children were subject to forced prostitution in the local sex-tourism industry." [2] The Senate passed the Murkowski worker reform bill unanimously, but the bill was then blocked by Tom DeLay in the House. [3]
In 1993, the government of the CNMI hired Preston Gates to lobby for it. Between October 1993 and September 2001, the firm was paid about $6.7 million by the CNMI government, about 72% of the government's overall lobbying payments. The CNMI government was one of the firm's biggest clients.
In 1995, Abramoff, employed at Preston Gates, took on the CNMI as a client. The government sought to retain exemptions from U.S. immigration and minimum wage laws. [4]
In October 1996, the contract with Preston Gates expired. The CNMI government broke its own laws by continuing to pay the firm - The initial Preston Gates contract with CNMI was from June 1, 1995 - June 30, 1996, for about $860,000. After the expiration of the contract, then-Governor Froilan C. Tenorio's office continued to pay Preston Gates, despite the lack of a valid contract, until January 11, 1998 when Governor Pedro P. Tenorio had been inaugurated, a grand total of $5.21 million. (Between October 1996 to October 1997, the total was just over $3 million. [5] ) The payment without contract was later judged illegal in an investigation by the CNMI Office of the Public Auditor.
Abramoff later arranged an all-expenses paid trip to Saipan for Tom DeLay on New Year's Eve in 1997. Although House ethics rules at the time prohibited House members from accepting such gifts from lobbyists, the trip was funded directly by the CNMI and thus was technically allowable. An internal memo from Preston, Gates, and Ellis stated that these sort of trips are "one of the most effective ways to build permanent friends on the Hill." [6] While on the trip, at a benefit dinner for Willie Tan of Tan Holdings Corporation, DeLay was quoted as saying:
When one of my closest and dearest friends, Jack Abramoff, your most able representative in Washington, D.C., invited me to the islands, I wanted to see firsthand the free-market success and the progress and reform you have made." [7]
An undercover investigation by ABC News captured Willie Tan speaking on a hidden camera about a conversation with DeLay about labor reform laws. According to Tan, "[DeLay] said, 'Willie, if they elect me majority whip, I make the schedule of the Congress, and I'm not going to put it on the schedule.' So Tom told me, 'Forget it, Willie. No chance.'" [6]
After the trip, Abramoff helped DeLay craft policy that extended exemptions from federal immigration and minimum-wage labor laws to Saipan industries, though the island is part of the U.S. Commonwealth. Brian Ross at ABC News for 20/20 on March 13, 1998 alleged that factories on Saipan have forced their workers to have abortions in order to keep their jobs.
In addition, Abramoff's lobbying team helped Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) craft statements [8] attacking the credibility of "Katrina," a teenaged sex slave whom federal officials relocated to Hawaii and who testified to federal investigators and Congress about the sex trade on that island, in the process forestalling a federal criminal prosecution. [9]
Abramoff also negotiated a $1.2 million no-bid contract from the Marianas for 'promoting ethics in government' to be awarded to David Lapin, brother of Daniel Lapin. [10]
Abramoff also allegedly paid the expenses for at least two other trips to the Marianas. In both cases, Abramoff was reimbursed by Preston Gates & Ellis, which was then being paid by the Marianas government. [11]
The first trip involved two aides to Tom DeLay, Edwin A. Buckham and Tony Rudy, both who later joined the lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group. Buckham and Rudy traveled with Abramoff from December 4 to December 12, 1996. Abramoff paid at least $3,000 of the costs, according to a memo written by his assistant Jennifer Senft Hamann. [11] The second trip involved James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS). In a letter dated December 17, 1996, the National Security Caucus Foundation invited the lawmakers to attend a trip to the island in January 1997, saying that the government would incur no expense. Non-profits are allowed to pay for lawmaker travel, and Clyburn and Thompson said they believed the NSCF was doing so. Greg Hilton, the director of the NSCF at the time, has said that Preston Gates & Ellis sent him the airline tickets and told him the government had paid for them. The cost of the trip was, according to an Abramoff memo, $15,657. The lawmakers said that they never met Abramoff nor knew of his involvement. [11]
Abramoff's lobbying contract with the CNMI was suspended in late 1998 due to a January change in administration and financial problems. In December 1999, allegedly at the request of CNMI politician Benigno R. Fitial, Edwin A. Buckham and Michael Scanlon visited the CNMI intending to convince two legislators to support Fitial for speaker of the CNMI's 18-member House of Representatives. Scanlon was still a member of Tom DeLay's congressional staff, and was on unpaid leave at the time. Buckham and Scanlon extended promises to help deliver federal aid to the legislators' districts, and succeeded in convincing the two Democratic legislators to vote for Fitial, a member of the rival Covenant Party. After Fitial was elected speaker in January 2000, he wrote the governor insisting that the islands contract again with Abramoff at Preston Gates & Ellis. [12]
In August 1999, Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig (which, all told, received $4.04 million from 1998 to 2002 from the Commonwealth), hired Millennium Marketing (a division of the Ralph Reed-founded Century Strategies) to "sen[d] out a mailer to Alabama conservative Christians asking them to call then-Rep. Bob Riley (R-Ala.) and tell him to vote against legislation that would have made the CNMI subject to federal minimum wage laws. "The radical left, the Big Labor Union Bosses, and Bill Clinton want to pass a law preventing Chinese from coming to work on the Marianas Islands," the mailer from Reed's firm said. The Chinese workers, it added, "are exposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ" while on the islands, and many "are converted to the Christian faith and return to China with Bibles in hand." [2]
In February 1999, a congressional delegation visited the CNMI; it included Representative John Doolittle, who would get significantly more involved in 2001. [13] Doolittle and Representative Joel Hefley write in June 1999, a "Dear Colleague" letter, saying that a May 1999 show on ABC's newsmagazine, 20/20, "The Shame of Saipan", had numerous inaccuracies, and that "Tom DeLay has consistently engaged government leaders in taking steps toward reform in the Mariana Islands to ensure and maintain a vibrant economy under local control." [14]
By late July 2000, Abramoff and Preston Gates were hired again, for $100,000 a month.
In January 2001 Abramoff switched lobbying firms to Greenberg Traurig. "'Our standing with the new administration promises to be solid as several friends of the CNMI (islands) will soon be taking high-ranking positions in the Administration, including within the Interior Department,' Abramoff wrote in a January 2001 letter in which he persuaded the island government to follow him as a client to his new lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig." [15] In January 2006, CNMI Governor Benigno Fitial demanded that Preston Gates & Ellis and Greenberg Traurig return much of the money originally paid for lobbying services, claiming that "the positive benefits of those services have been undone by the wide scandal brought on by the criminal charges against Abramoff." [16]
In August 2006, Roger Stillwell, formerly an employee of the Department of the Interior, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to report gifts received from Abramoff during the period that Abramoff was lobbying the Interior on behalf of the Commonwealth of the Marianas Islands. [17]
In April 2008, the US Senate campaign of Republican Bob Schaffer was rocked by reports of Schaffer's participation in a 1999 trip with his wife to the CNMI organized by Preston-Gates, and paid for by the Traditional Values Coalition. Schaffer later used his position on the House Resources Committee to attack reports of abuses on the islands. [18]
Saipan is the largest island and capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a Territory of the United States in the western Pacific Ocean. According to 2020 estimates by the United States Census Bureau, the population of Saipan was 43,385. Its people have been United States citizens since the 1980s. Saipan is one of the main homes of the Chamorro, the Indigenous people of the Mariana Islands.
Thomas Dale DeLay is an American author and retired politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives. A Republican, DeLay represented Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1985 until 2006. He served as House majority leader from 2003 to 2005.
Ralph Moody Hall was an American politician who served as the United States representative for Texas's 4th congressional district from 1981 to 2015. He was first elected in 1980, and was the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology from 2011 to 2013. He was also a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. In 2004, he switched to the Republican Party after having been a member of the Democratic Party for more than 50 years.
Amy Moritz Ridenour was president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a Washington, DC conservative think tank. Ridenour held this post from the organization's founding in 1982 until her death. She wrote a syndicated op-ed column from 1997 and was a frequent radio and television guest.
Jack Allan Abramoff is an American lobbyist, businessman, film producer, and writer. He was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation led by Earl Devaney that resulted in his conviction and 21 other people either pleading guilty or being found guilty, including White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and congressional aides.
Michael Scanlon is a former communications director for Rep. Tom DeLay, lobbyist, and public relations executive who has pleaded guilty to corruption charges related to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. He is currently assisting in the investigation of his former partners Abramoff, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed by separate state and federal grand jury investigations related to the defrauding of American Indian tribes and corruption of public officials.
The Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal was a United States political scandal exposed in 2005; it related to fraud perpetrated by political lobbyists Jack Abramoff, Ralph E. Reed Jr., Grover Norquist and Michael Scanlon on Native American tribes who were seeking to develop casino gambling on their reservations. The lobbyists charged the tribes an estimated $85 million in fees. Abramoff and Scanlon grossly overbilled their clients, secretly splitting the multi-million dollar profits. In one case, they secretly orchestrated lobbying against their own clients in order to force them to pay for lobbying services.
The monetary influence of Jack Abramoff ran deep in Washington, as Jack Abramoff spent millions of dollars to influence and entertain both Republican and Democratic politicians. Abramoff had a reputation for largesse considered exceptional even by Washington standards. In addition to offering many Republican members of Congress expensive free meals at his restaurant, Signatures, Abramoff maintained four skyboxes at major sports arenas for political entertaining at a cost of over $1 million a year. Abramoff hosted many fundraisers at these skyboxes including events for Republican politicians publicly opposed to gambling, such as John Doolittle. Abramoff gave over $260,000 in personal contributions to Republican candidates, politicians, and organizations, and funded numerous trips for politicians and staffers and gave none to Democrats.
"Team Abramoff" is the team of lobbyists assembled by Jack Abramoff when he worked at Greenberg Traurig, primarily of former aides to prominent Congressional politicians. Their work is embroiled in the Jack Abramoff scandals.
Alexander Strategy Group was an American lobbying firm involved in the K Street Project. The firm was founded by Ed Buckham, a former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Tom Delay, and his wife Wendy. The firm openly promoted its access to DeLay. Its chief lobbyist was Paul Behrends, who became Dana Rohrabacher's aide.
Capitol Campaign Strategies was an American public relations firm run by Michael Scanlon, Tom DeLay's former press secretary, which Scanlon used in coordination with Jack Abramoff to redirect about $40 million in lobbying contributions from Indian tribes to Scanlon, Abramoff, and their associates, as well as funding bribes to Republican politicians such as Bob Ney. Scanlon and Abramoff have pleaded guilty for their activities. After Abramoff left Preston Gates and went to Greenberg Traurig in January 2001, Scanlon formed Capitol Campaign Strategies. Its official location was 611 Pennsylvania Avenue SE in Washington, D.C., which is a maildrop. Scanlon also formed the dummy organizations American International Center and Atlantic Research Analysis aka Atlantic Research & Analysis, used to receive and distribute CCS money.
Edwin A. Buckham is Chief of Staff to U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. He is a longtime congressional staffer and former lobbyist.
U.S. Family Network, Inc. (USFN) was founded in 1996 by Ed Buckham, who also served as the organization's consultant. USFN was a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) corporation founded in Virginia, with its principal offices located in the District of Columbia in the same building as Buckham's consulting firm Alexander Strategy Group and Tom DeLay's political action committee Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC). USFN received $500,000 from the NRCC and $1 million from lobbyist Jack Abramoff's Russian clients.
Will Brooke is an American political staffer and a figure in the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal.
Mark Zachares is a Republican politician and lobbyist who served as Congressional aide to Rep. Don Young (R-AK). He pleaded guilty on April 24, 2007 to accepting tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from lobbyist Jack Abramoff in return for using his position in Congress to advance Abramoff's interests.
Todd Boulanger is an American lobbyist. He was senior vice president of Cassidy & Associates and was a figure in the Jack Abramoff scandal.
James F. Hirni is a lobbyist who was convicted of bribing U.S. Senate staff aides in exchange for favorable amendments to legislation. A former aide to U.S. Senator Tim Hutchinson (R-AR), he joined the lobbying firm Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, and then became a member of "Team Abramoff" at Greenberg Traurig. He went on to become a lobbyist for Wal-Mart from 2004–08, as its executive director of Republican outreach. He was fired when charges were filed concerning his activities with Abramoff.
Froilan Cruz "Lang" Tenorio was a Northern Mariana Islander politician who was the fourth governor of the Northern Mariana Islands. Elected in 1993, he served one term from January 10, 1994 to January 12, 1998. During his governorship and most of his political career, Tenorio was a member of the Democratic Party of the Northern Mariana Islands, which was not then affiliated with the American Democratic Party. However, he later switched his affiliation to the Reform Party, a party he founded. Froilan Tenorio would later switch back to the Democrat in 2002 and then to the Covenant Party in 2009.
Casino Jack and the United States of Money is a 2010 documentary film directed by Alex Gibney.
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