By Peter H. Stone, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, May 6, 2005
5:30 p.m. EDT

The office of then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, helped kill a 1998 congressional fact-finding trip that was being planned as part of an investigation of sweatshop conditions in the garment industry in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, according to two former House aides who worked on the investigation.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., then-chairman of the Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, was leading the investigation, which was part of a broader inquiry into U.S. labor laws.

The two former House aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that planning was under way in mid-1998 for a congressional delegation trip to the Marianas to look into press reports of worker abuse and low wages in the islands' garment industry. At that time, the aides said, DeLay's office pressured Hoekstra to drop any plans for the Marianas trip.

Both aides recall that Hoekstra told them that DeLay's office suggested that Hoekstra might lose his subcommittee chairmanship if he went ahead with the fact-finding trip. DeLay, a staunch ally of the Marianas government, had led efforts in the House in 1997 and 1998 to kill legislation that was aimed at ending the Marianas' exemption from U.S. minimum-wage laws. The Marianas, a chain of islands in the western Pacific Ocean, is a territory of the United States.

"We were under very strict orders not to deal with the Marianas," recalled one of the former aides, who was a subcommittee staffer. "Hoekstra made it very clear that he was told to lay off the Marianas." Hoekstra was "absolutely beside himself," the aide added. "He was livid."

The second former aide, who worked directly for Hoekstra, confirmed the account. This former aide recalled that when Hoekstra returned to his office one day in mid-1998 after a meeting in the majority whip's office, the congressman was "pissed off," complaining to some of his staff, "They shut us down."

In a series of telephone interviews, Hoekstra, now chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, disputed key aspects of the accounts of his former staffers. "I don't remember a dustup with DeLay or [the] leadership on a CODEL," Hoekstra told National Journal, using the term for a congressional delegation trip. Hoekstra added that the Marianas "may have been important to them (his former staffers), but it wasn't that important to me. I never got that fully engaged."

Hoekstra stressed that his 1998 probe was much broader in nature and focused only partly on sweatshops that were operated in New York and other U.S. cities. Hoekstra said that he made two trips to New York to look into sweatshop conditions.

But the congressman acknowledged that there "might have been some discussion about going to the Marianas." Hoekstra said that his former aides "may have a better recollection than I have. If it ever happened, it didn't have much of an impact on me."

Dan Allen, a spokesman for DeLay, told National Journal, "This is the first time Congressman DeLay is hearing of this, and it's not something that he was involved with."

Commenting on the charge that DeLay's office helped scuttle a CODEL, a former House leadership aide familiar with the Marianas issues said, "That would have been an easy lift for those guys, but rather unorthodox. Normally you don't mess with trips if they're legitimate."

At the time, DeLay and his office were well-known advocates for the Marianas, located just north of Guam and known for balmy weather and manicured golf courses. The whip, his wife, Christine, and his then-chief of staff, Ed Buckham, spent New Year's Day 1998 in the Marianas on a trip that was arranged by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close DeLay ally who was representing the Northern Marianas government in Washington.

During that trip, DeLay lauded Abramoff as "one of my closest and dearest friends," and as the islands' able representative in Washington. After DeLay returned to Washington, he indicated that he would block any new legislation to end the Marianas' exemption from U.S. minimum-wage laws.

Abramoff, who is now under federal criminal investigation related to tens of millions of dollars in fees he was paid by Indian tribes that operate casinos, began working for the islands in 1995 when he was at the firm of Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds. During Abramoff's tenure there, the firm was paid almost $8 million to help defend the islands' controversial treatment of low-wage immigrant workers from Asia who labored in its garment shops.

In his work for the Marianas -- a government facing mounting criticism from labor and liberal groups over stories of worker abuses -- Abramoff depended heavily on DeLay's backing. On a few occasions, the lobbyist helped arrange trips to the Marianas for DeLay staffers.

To press the Marianas' cause on Capitol Hill, Abramoff also tapped into a network of conservative groups, including Americans for Tax Reform, run by conservative activist Grover Norquist, and the Traditional Values Coalition, a group led by the Rev. Lou Sheldon. Hoekstra said that Sheldon had talked to him about conditions on the islands, but Abramoff never did.

Abramoff also helped orchestrate visits to the U.S. by top officials in the Marianas government and key executives in the islands' garment industry. One such executive was Ben Fitial, who visited DeLay's office in Washington in April 1997 just a few days after spending time with DeLay at a Texas golf tournament that was a benefit for the DeLay Foundation for Kids. In an e-mail to Buckham following his visit, Fitial thanked Buckham and DeLay for "allowing our group to virtually take over [DeLay's] office."

In December 1999, after Buckham had started his own lobbying shop, the Alexander Strategy Group, he flew to the Marianas with former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon as part of an unusual lobbying blitz to help Fitial, then a newly elected member of the Marianas' 18-member House of Representatives, win the position of speaker of the legislative body.

As part of a successful effort to persuade two Marianas legislators to switch their votes to Fitial and make him speaker, Buckham-who had an arrangement with Abramoff to share some consulting work for the Marianas government-promised new transportation funding and other appropriations assistance for the islands from the U.S. Congress.

After Fitial took over as speaker, he went to bat for Abramoff, whose contract with the islands had been suspended about a year earlier. The Los Angeles Times reported on May 6 that within months of Fitial's intervention, Abramoff landed a new contract with the Marianas government worth about $1.6 million.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who has been a champion of labor reform efforts in the Marianas and who recently called for a congressional probe into Abramoff's activities, said that the charges by the former House staffers should be investigated, given "everything we know about the successful effort to block labor and immigration legislation in Congress. You have a swirl of events that look more and more like criminal activities."

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