Bob Schaffer visited the Marianas in August 1999 on a trip he knew was sponsored by Jack Abramoff

• The four-day trip was sponsored by the Traditional Values Coalition, an organization that figured in the Abramoff scandals when it was revealed that Abramoff directed one of his clients, gambling firm eLottery, to pay the organization $25,000.[1]

• In an August 1999 memo, Schaffer was told that travel arrangements to the Mariana Islands had been made by Abramoff’s firm, Preston-Gates.[2]

• A year earlier, Abramoff had sent a memo to a Marianas textile manufacturer Willie Tan detailing a lobbying plan focused on using congressional oversight hearings to change the subject from factory conditions to political shenanigans by the Clinton administration. Trips to the island for congressmen and staff would be a key tool to “build permanent friends,” the memo said. [3]

Bob Schaffer has taken $9,400 in campaign contributions from people living in the Northern Mariana Islands[4]

• In 1998, Schaffer received $2000 from Jerry Tan, the vice president of Tan Holdings Group and CEO of CTSI Logistics. Tan Holdings is the largest textile manufacture on the island, and Jerry’s brother Willie Tan is both the president of Tan Holdings and the contact Abramoff dealt with while they were his clients.[5]

• On July 21, 2004, Schaffer received eight donations totaling $7,200, including $500 from Jerry Tan and $1000 from Marian Aldan-Peirce , who is president of DPS Saipan Limited, a large retailer, and member of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce’s Government Relations Committee.[6]

• In 2006, Schaffer received another $200 from Marian Aldan-Pierce.

 

Although his was a fact-finding tour, Schaffer had already made up his mind that there was no worker abuse on the Marianas. Such allegations had already been substantiated by multiple sources, including the Department of Interior

• In a press release issued before the trip, Schaffer called the allegations of worker abuse "false rumors motivated by local politics."[7]

• A 1998 Department of Interior report had previously found that forced abortions were a relatively common practice on the Marianas. “Abortion appears to be a common practice as a means of birth control,” the report found. “One employee was terminated following her refusal to have the procedure…She was told that she could have her old job back after she had an abortion.”[8]

After his visit to the Marianas, Schaffer turned an oversight hearing on the Department of Insular Affairs into an attack on the agency

• During a September 16, 1999 hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee, Schaffer accused the department of paying workers to protest and providing them “signs, cars and other resources” to protest during Schaffer’s visit. “I will tell you with absolute certainty, while I was there in (the Mariana Islands) and interviewed a number of garment workers, I was told on multiple occasions that individuals received funds - in fact, $1,200 - from federal officials to attend this rally and go rent cars, fill up the tank, and feed people,” Schaffer said during the hearing.”[9]

Also after his visit, Schaffer twice endorsed a local politician with close ties to Abramoff

• In November 1999, Schaffer endorsed Benigno Fitial in his race for House speaker of the Commonwealth Legislature.[10] In an advertisement published in the Saipan Tribune on congressional letterhead Schaffer praised Fitial's commitment to "an economic agenda of growth" and instincts "useful in strengthening a positive relationship" with the U.S. Congress, according to the Denver Post.[11]

• In 2000, with Fitial now House speaker, the islands’ legislature passed two resolutions calling for the government to hire a lobbyist, including one in July 2000 that specifically called for selecting Abramoff’s firm, Preston Gates, and ended up costing $100,000 a month.[12]

• In 2001, Schaffer then endorsed Benigno Fitial in his race for island governor. According to the Denver Post, the endorsement “was part of a concerted and public campaign by Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources to boost Fitial's public career when he became key to extending a multimillion-dollar lobbying contract for Abramoff from the island's government.”[13]

Abramoff and Fitial both bragged about their successful relationship

• In 2001, Abramoff wrote a memo to the Marianas governor justifying his fees. According to the Denver Post, the memo “points to the lavish trips for dozens of lawmakers and family members to build goodwill. And he says his connections ultimately scuttled dangerous legislation like the bill proposed by then-Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, which would have toughened the islands' labor and immigration laws. ‘We then stopped it cold in the House,’ the memo boasts.”[14]

• In October of 2001, while running for governor, Fitial told an audience that the federal government would provide the islands with emergency funds needed after economic shock of 9/11.  “I talked to my friend Cong. Bob Schaffer over the phone and he told me that this assistance will be coming very, very soon,” said Fitial.[15]