Right-wing blogger on KFKA let Schaffer omit facts in attacking Post articles about his ties to Abramoff

Summary: Interviewing U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer (R), blogger and 1310 KFKA guest host Ross Kaminsky failed to challenge Schaffer's attacks on a series of Denver Post reports about his 1999 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands, failed to press Schaffer to provide any specifics on what Schaffer labeled "egregious reporting errors" or "acts of omission" in the articles, and did not point out that the law firm that employed disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff at the time helped arrange Schaffer's trip.

During an interview with Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer on the April 21 broadcast of 1310 KFKA's The Amy Oliver Show, guest host and right-wing blogger Ross Kaminsky uncritically allowed Schaffer to attack The Denver Post's coverage of his controversial 1999 "fact-finding" trip to the Northern Mariana Islands as a U.S. Congressman while omitting important facts about his visit. After Schaffer claimed that the trip was sponsored by "a Christian nonprofit organization," Kaminsky failed to point out that now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff's employer at the time, the Preston Gates law firm, helped make the arrangements. Schaffer also said that during his visit to the islands he "worked pretty much around the clock" meeting with human rights activists, religious leaders, and an attorney, but did not disclose that he "met with clients of Preston-Gates" and attended a lunch meeting "with several current or former clients of" Abramoff's firm, according to archived meeting agendas the Post cited.

Although Schaffer accused the Post of committing "egregious reporting errors" and "acts of omission" in its series of articles raising questions about his trip, and accused the newspaper of being "a very aggressive, partisan, and biased force in the race for the United States Senate," Kaminsky did not ask Schaffer for information about specific errors or omissions in the Post articles.

Schaffer told Kaminsky that his Democratic opponent in the race, U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, "had taken campaign cash from Abramoff and his firms," adding, "But I've got no such connection with the guy, and hadn't." Schaffer further stated, "In fact, the group that I went to the Commonwealth of North Marianas Islands with was a nonprofit Christian human rights organization called the Family Values Coalition." Schaffer later added:

And again, the committees I served on -- mainly the House Resources Committee, but also the House Education and Labor Committee -- both had jurisdiction over various aspects of what was occurring there, and I had an opportunity, again, through a Christian nonprofit organization that sponsored my trip and planned it and organized it with me, to go there and spend a few days seeing it for myself. And we worked pretty much around the clock taking a look at, doing investigations, meeting with workers, meeting with religious leaders and human rights activists on the islands. There was a class action lawsuit -- I met with an attorney that was heading that up and some of his clients too, and we investigated the whole situation as thoroughly as you can in a week.

However, Schaffer did not divulge the fact that "Abramoff, who represented textile factory owners fighting congressional efforts to reform labor and immigration laws," had helped organize the trip, or that the "Traditional Values Coalition" organization to which Schaffer apparently referred, which reportedly funded his trip, purportedly "acted virtually as a political arm of Abramoff's lobbying operation," as the Post reported on April 10:

Just before boarding a plane to the Mariana Islands in 1999, then-Congressman Bob Schaffer announced he was embarking on a fact-finding mission to get to the bottom of repeated allegations of labor abuse in the American protectorate.

"I plan to walk right into those factories and living quarters to see for myself what conditions exist," Schaffer said in a news release in August of that year.

What he didn't say was that the trip was partly arranged by the firm of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who represented textile factory owners fighting congressional efforts to reform labor and immigration laws on the islands and who was being handsomely paid to keep the islands' cherished exemptions.

Schaffer and his wife stayed for free at a palm-studded beach resort and, besides factories, also toured historical sites and met with clients of Preston-Gates, Abramoff's firm, according to a copy of the trip's agenda archived in Schaffer's congressional papers.

He left believing that allegations of widespread abuse were largely unfounded -- blaming them on Big Labor's efforts to shut down a booming textile industry allowed to use the "Made in USA" label but dependent on tens of thousands of imported workers.

In a recent interview with The Denver Post, the Republican candidate for Colorado's open Senate seat described the protectorate's guest-worker program as a "model" lawmakers could use as they overhaul the U.S. immigration system.

"At its base it is a union fight that has been taking place there," Schaffer said in a recent interview about what he found on the islands. "I insisted that it be a real investigation, which it was," he said, noting that he visited more than 20 factories and found serious problems in only one.

[...]

Schaffer's $13,000 trip was paid for by the Orange County, Calif.-based Traditional Values Coalition, which Schaffer described as a religious group "concerned with human rights."

"Whatever involvement (Abramoff) had with Traditional Values Coalition wasn't known at the time," [Schaffer campaign manager Dick] Wadhams said.

Later investigations have shown that in many instances, TVC -- which claims to represent 43,000 churches -- acted virtually as a political arm of Abramoff's lobbying operation. [emphases added]

Schaffer also neglected to mention, as Colorado Media Matters has noted, citing the Post, that notes indicate Schaffer attended a lunch meeting "with several current or former clients of [Abramoff's] firm, including the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association and the Western Pacific Economic Council."

Kaminsky also failed to question Schaffer regarding the Post's April 13 reporting stating that "Schaffer was one of the key players" at a hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources that "provides a key context for a trip to the islands" and revealed the existence of a "secret memo" Abramoff sent to a "textile tycoon on the Northern Mariana Islands," in which he "mapped out" a strategy for congressional oversight hearings on labor issues in the Northern Marianas. According to the Post:

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. [emphases added]

Additionally, Kaminsky did not ask Schaffer about his reported support of Benigno Fitial, whom the Post described in its April 11 report as "governor of the Northern Mariana Islands and a powerful former ally" of Abramoff.

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. [emphases added]

Later in the broadcast, after Kaminsky stated, "I was fairly appalled by how much attention The Denver Post was giving to this story, it appeared to me, in just trying to smear you," Schaffer replied that he "agree[d] with that characterization." Schaffer added:

Especially given the nature of the poor quality of writing where these stories are concerned. I mean, there are just outright lies that you'll find in -- maybe that's too harsh. Maybe I should be more charitable and just suggest egregious reporting errors in the stories, just facts that are represented that are just untrue, and complete prevarications that are in many of the stories that have appeared. And it's just, you know -- and reporting by acts of omission as well. I mean, I spent a lot of time with the principal reporter on these stories, and very little of my side of it makes it into print.

For anybody who believes that there is an honest attempt at objectivity by The Denver Post in this Senate campaign, I think these stories pretty much dispel that -- that notion. The Post has become a very aggressive, partisan, and biased force in the race for the United States Senate, and it's at my expense. And I really regret that, you know, an institution that used to be pretty respectable and dependable as The Denver Post has become what it is now. I hope there's some way that somebody in a position of leadership over at the Post will reassert their authority at some point and demand, you know, some kind of a balanced approach to the Senate campaign, 'cause it has a big influence.

However, Schaffer did not identify any of the Post's purported "egregious reporting errors" or "acts of omission," and Kaminsky failed to press Schaffer to provide specifics regarding the alleged transgressions.

From the April 21 broadcast of 1310 KFKA's The Amy Oliver Show, with guest host Ross Kaminsky:

KAMINSKY: And then Brad Jones was on the air with us speaking about Mark Udall's connections to Abramoff, and basically made the point that back then, anyway, nobody knew or cared about Abramoff and that you were just doing the type of research that any normal member of your committee would be doing. I don't know if you want to even talk about this or move on to something else.

SCHAFFER: I didn't have any interaction with Abramoff. I had never met him. And you're right; back in 1999 he was not an infamous name at that point. It wasn't till, I think, '03 or '04 that he ended up, you know, getting -- that there were investigations and so on. But regardless, I know Udall had taken -- had suggested that he had taken campaign cash from Abramoff and his firms. But I've got no such connection with the guy, and hadn't. In fact, the group that I went to the Commonwealth of North Marianas Islands with was a nonprofit Christian human rights organization called the Family Values Coalition, and it represents about 20,000 churches around the country, and there were some pretty serious allegations at the time, spanning through the '90s, of workplace abuses and so on in the Commonwealth of North Marianas Islands, and we went to go see for ourselves, and there were some workplace settings that I found to be problematic, troublesome. One in particular that I would say was appalling, and it was a mix. There were a number of factories there. And some are not that desirable, and some are shut down since those reports that were first initiated, and the island government knew it had a problem on its hands and needed to reform its apparel industry. There's been some progress made, there's probably still some to go. I haven't been connected with, I haven't been in the Congress since 2002, so the committee that I served on that had jurisdiction over those issues gave me an opportunity to learn more about the situation there, but I haven't pursued it since I left Congress, obviously.

KAMINSKY: Congressman, it seems that, you know, typically in political campaigns, a lot of the dirt comes directly from the other campaign. But it's possible that in this case, that the people who are targeting you using the media as a proxy may be unions rather than just the Udall campaign. I wonder if you could -- I don't want to even talk about the politics as much as the interesting issues that are going on in those islands about, for example, their ability to have their own laws on certain subjects that makes this something that, you know, that made it originally very interesting for you from a true policy perspective.

SCHAFFER: Sure. The Commonwealth of North Marianas Islands, when it became the commonwealth of the United States -- and I don't remember what year that was, but it was back in the '50s or '60s, somewhere around there, probably. Maybe even later -- they became a protectorate of the U.S. through a covenant, and in their covenant they negotiated their own, they have their own labor laws, their own immigration laws, and their own shipping laws, all of which are in favor or lean in the favor of economic growth and job creation in the protectorate, in the commonwealth. And labor unions have been fighting to try to apply the same rules and regulations that apply to the rest of the country that the -- union rules -- that they want in the Commonwealth of North Marianas Islands. The apparel industry is largely un-unionized and, there. So that's been their motivation. Now, that doesn't explain away some of the abuses that have been reported there. Some of the factories in the Commonwealth of the North Marianas Islands are in fact Chinese-owned, and that's typically where many of these allegations are directed.

SCHAFFER: Again, that has changed a little bit over time, and some of those Chinese factories have been shut down. But nonetheless, those reports still exist, and they reflect a time period when more of those factories were under Chinese ownership. So you've got that undercurrent of union activism, then you've got on top of that during the Clinton administration, or the Clinton years, which is when I served in Congress and when this issue really came to a head, you had the Clinton administration essentially dragging its feet on enforcement and, to the point where there were even Clinton administration officials who in various memos were complaining about the lack of lack of attention and cooperation with the Clinton administration working with the Island's government on some of these immigration, enforcement, and workplace safety issues. And then there was another level of corruption that emerged later through other investigations about actual government corruption on the island. So there's just a swirling pool of controversial issues at a variety of levels.

SCHAFFER: And again, the committees I served on -- mainly the House Resources Committee, but also the House Education and Labor Committee -- both had jurisdiction over various aspects of what was occurring there, and I had an opportunity, again, through a Christian nonprofit organization that sponsored my trip and planned it and organized it with me, to go there and spend a few days seeing it for myself. And we worked pretty much around the clock taking a look at, doing investigations, meeting with workers, meeting with religious leaders and human rights activists on the islands. There was a class action lawsuit -- I met with an attorney that was heading that up and some of his clients too, and we investigated the whole situation as thoroughly as you can in a week. That's -- yeah, you're right, though; there are economic, and union, and political issues that are at play there in addition to the more disturbing allegations associated with workplace safety, forced abortions, prostitution, things of that sort, which, again, a number of reports indicated had occurred throughout the '90s.

KAMINSKY: Well, congressman, from the things that I've read and learned speaking with you and others about the trip, it seems to me that -- two main points: You were really over there doing the work you were supposed to be doing, and that's what you did. And this story should never have been more than a small paragraph on a back page of a newspaper, if anything. It is really, basically, an irrelevancy with your political opponents trying to target you with something that, I hope that most people will figure out is irrelevant.

[...]

KAMINSKY: Congressman, I had mentioned before you were on the air with us that I was fairly appalled by how much attention The Denver Post was giving to this story, it appeared to me, in just trying to smear you. Do you want to talk about that at all?

SCHAFFER: Yeah, I agree with that characterization. Especially given the nature of the poor quality of writing where these stories are concerned. I mean, there are just outright lies that you'll find in -- maybe that's too harsh. Maybe I should be more charitable and just suggest egregious reporting errors in the stories, just facts that are represented that are just untrue, and complete prevarications that are in many of the stories that have appeared. And it's just, you know -- and reporting by acts of omission as well. I mean, I spent a lot of time with the principal reporter on these stories, and very little of my side of it makes it into print.

SCHAFFER: For anybody who believes that there is an honest attempt at objectivity by The Denver Post in this Senate campaign, I think these stories pretty much dispel that -- that notion. The Post has become a very aggressive, partisan, and biased force in the race for the United States Senate, and it's at my expense. And I really regret that, you know, an institution that used to be pretty respectable and dependable as The Denver Post has become what it is now. I hope there's some way that somebody in a position of leadership over at the Post will reassert their authority at some point and demand, you know, some kind of a balanced approach to the Senate campaign, 'cause it has a big influence.

—C.H. & J.F.B.