Rocky again omitted basic context in reporting GOP comments on Schaffer's ties to Abramoff firm

Summary: For the second time in five days, in an article that reported on links "disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff" had with former U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer, the Rocky Mountain News failed to address specific questions The Denver Post raised in connection with Schaffer's 1999 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands, which was arranged partly by Abramoff's firm.

In an April 17 article reporting on connections between jailed former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the candidates to succeed Colorado Republican U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, the Rocky Mountain News again failed to note critical details regarding Bob Schaffer's (R) controversial 1999 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands. Although in addressing the Schaffer campaign's reaction to the controversy it reported that "Schaffer visited the U.S. territory" on a trip "arranged in part by Abramoff's lobbying firm" and that "[t]he territory had hired Abramoff to fight congressional attempts at worker reforms," the News omitted as context some of the other key information The Denver Post reported on April 10, April 11, and April 13 that has raised questions about possible ties between Abramoff and efforts Schaffer undertook as a U.S. representative during and after the trip.

Specifically, the News repeated omissions from an April 12 article (accessed through the Nexis database) by Lynn Bartels. The April 17 article failed to note that, according to the Post, during the trip Schaffer met with several of Abramoff's clients; after the trip, Schaffer "was one of the key players" in a House Resources Committee hearing in which Republican members shifted the focus of the investigation from charges of labor abuses to questions about the motivations of those making the charges; and after the trip Schaffer supported a Northern Marianas politician -- Benigno Fitial -- who worked to continue Abramoff's lobbying contract for the territory.

The April 17 News article, also by Bartels, reported that Udall "took $1,500 in contributions from two firms that once employed disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff," and that "[t]he Abramoff issue began after Schaffer recently touted the Marianas' guest-worker program, despite documented instances of employee abuses."

From the April 17 Rocky Mountain News article "Udall got $1,500 from Abramoff's employers," by Lynn Bartels:

U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall took $1,500 in contributions from two firms that once employed disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Udall's campaign spokeswoman, Taylor West, said the donations from the companies' political action committees to the Eldorado Springs Democrat's congressional campaigns were legal. She said Udall plans to donate the $1,500 to an organization in the Marianas Islands that assists victims of human trafficking.

[...]

The Abramoff issue began after Schaffer recently touted the Marianas' guest-worker program, despite documented instances of employee abuses.

Schaffer visited the U.S. territory in 1999 as part of a fact-finding trip arranged in part by Abramoff's lobbying firm. The territory had hired Abramoff to fight congressional attempts at worker reforms.

Schaffer said he complained about a garment factory he deemed a sweatshop and was told it had been closed, but critics disagree.

"Bob Schaffer took an Abramoff-sponsored trip and turned a blind eye to forced abortions and human trafficking of guest workers, while Mark Udall was co-sponsoring three pieces of legislation to fix problems in the Marianas," West said.

West said the issue is Abramoff's attempt to thwart reforms and Schaffer's willingness to assist him.

"That is a bald-faced lie and Boulder liberal Mark Udall should be ashamed of himself," Wadhams said.

The News did not mention, as Colorado Media Matters has noted, citing the Post, that according to archived meeting agendas, during the trip Schaffer "met with clients of Preston-Gates, Abramoff's firm," and that notes indicate Schaffer attended a lunch meeting "with several current or former clients of the firm, including the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association and the Western Pacific Economic Council."

Further, the News omitted the Post's April 13 reporting that "Schaffer was one of the key players" at a hearing of the House Resources Committee that "provides a key context for a trip to the islands that Schaffer had taken a month before, partly arranged by Abramoff's lobbying firm and now an issue in Schaffer's campaign for the U.S. Senate." The Post reported that in a "secret memo" to a "textile tycoon on the Northern Mariana Islands," Abramoff had "mapped out" a strategy for congressional oversight hearings on labor issues in the Northern Marianas:

In early 1998, now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff sent a secret memo to a textile tycoon on the Northern Mariana Islands, an American protectorate whose garment factories had been heavily criticized for squalid working conditions and abusive labor practices.

The lobbying plan focused on using congressional oversight hearings to change the subject from factory conditions to political shenanigans by the Clinton administration. Abramoff's lobbying team would prepare questions and "factual backup" for friendly lawmakers. Trips to the island for congressmen and staff would be a key tool to "build permanent friends," the memo said.

The linchpin would be an attack on the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs (OIA), which was the lead agency pushing for reform.

Twenty months later, Republicans on the House Resources Committee, including Rep. Bob Schaffer, R-Colo., turned what was supposed to be an oversight hearing into an attack on OIA officials, suggesting that federal employees were paying workers to protest and providing them signs, cars and other resources.

Schaffer was one of the key players in the hearing, grilling a young worker who had been called before the committee to talk about the desperate conditions faced by some laborers, suggesting instead that he was agitating in exchange for money and came to Washington to seek political asylum.

Schaffer "comes into this hearing with a stack of papers and then just sort of unloads on this worker," said Ben Miller, legislative director for California Rep. George Miller, the ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee at the time.

"The Democratic staff at the hearing just started sort of looking at each other like, 'Where is this coming from?' " Ben Miller said, based on notes and conversations he'd had with staffers there at the time.

"I wasn't a part of anybody's strategy. I was interested in the allegations of the U.S. government breaking laws," Schaffer said in an interview Saturday.

First-hand look

The hearing provides a key context for a trip to the islands that Schaffer had taken a month before, partly arranged by Abramoff's lobbying firm and now an issue in Schaffer's campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Described at the time and in two recent interviews as a fact-finding mission on alleged textile industry labor abuses, the trip also provided Schaffer time to gather ammunition for the hearing that Democrats on the committee say was part of a GOP counter-strategy to discredit the system's critics, including the Clinton administration and human-rights groups.

[...]

Preston-Gates, Abramoff's firm, made the travel arrangements for Schaffer's August 1999 trip, according to a memo to Schaffer from his staff. The $13,000 trip was paid for by the Orange County-based Traditional Values Coalition, which later investigations showed was often used by Abramoff in his lobbying operations.

Schaffer was a relative back bencher, and Democrats said that at the time they were taken by surprise by his prominent role in the September hearing.

He referred repeatedly to a memo from David North, an OIA staffer, which offered editing comments on a report of labor abuse by the group Global Survival Network.

And he quizzed the head of the OIA, Danny Aranza, about the alleged payments from his office to protesters.

It was a strategy that had been literally mapped out by Abramoff a year and a half earlier in the memo addressed to Willie Tan, who is one of the islands' biggest textile manufacturers and had input on the lobbying contract between the islands and Abramoff's firm. [emphases added]

The News also failed to address the Post's April 11 report that after the trip Schaffer was "among several Republican U.S. lawmakers who stepped in to lend their support" at key junctures to Benigno Fitial, "governor of the Northern Mariana Islands and a powerful former ally of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff." The Post further claimed that "Schaffer 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":

At two key moments in the political life of Benigno Fitial -- governor of the Northern Mariana Islands and a powerful former ally of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- then-Congressman Bob Schaffer was among several Republican U.S lawmakers who stepped in to lend their support, according to a copy of advertisements posted on a national blog and another obtained by The Denver Post.

The first was in 1999, when Fitial, who supported the islands' garment industry, was preparing an underdog run for House speaker of the Commonwealth Legislature. The second came two years later, when Fitial was running for governor of the islands.

The two instances, in which Schaffer endorsed Fitial in ads in island newspapers, show that Schaffer has had close and enduring ties with key politicians on the American protectorate, extending relationships he developed while on a fact-finding mission there in August 1999. They also show that Schaffer 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.

Schaffer's ties to the Northern Mariana Islands and Abramoff have been the subject of new scrutiny as he campaigns for Colorado's open U.S. Senate seat. [emphases added]

—E.B.