Schaffer Played Attack Dog against Exploited Marianas Worker

Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer swears he’s never met Jack Abramoff. But his track record of serving as a key ally for one of Abramoff’s star clients, the Northern Mariana Islands, makes it clear that the two had a surprising overlap of interests over a number of years.

This weekend, The Denver Post detailed how Schaffer had beautifully orchestrated Abramoff’s lobbying strategy for the islands in a September, 1999 Congressional hearing.

Schaffer told the Post that his “were questions that occurred to me at the time listening to the testimony.” But it’s apparent from the course of the hearing that’s not true.

In a 1998 memo, Abramoff had laid out that strategy, which concentrated on attacking Interior Department officials who had been advocating stricter immigration and labor laws on the islands. Flying lawmakers on junkets to the islands, Abramoff wrote, was “one of the most effective ways to build permanent friends on the Hill.” The September hearing occurred just weeks after Schaffer’s Abramoff-organized trip to the islands.

Perhaps even more remarkable, though, was the form that Schaffer’s attack took against Interior officials. Human rights activists had arranged for Nousher Jahedi, a Bangladeshi laborer who’d been robbed by human traffickers on his way to the Northern Marianas, to appear at the hearing.

Schaffer’s aggressive questioning of Jahedi brings to mind comments that Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) entered into the Congressional record in 1997 — comments that were shown to have been prepared by Jack Abramoff. Hall said that one of the key test cases of abuse on the islands, the testimony of a fifteen year-old girl who’d been forced to work for a local nightclub, was being distorted. She “wanted to do nude dancing.” Hall has also said he never met Abramoff.

In his prepared statement, Jahedi told the committee that he’d paid a $7,000 “recruitment fee” to get a job on the islands, a U.S. territory, but that his recruiter had robbed him of $1,700 at gunpoint in the Philippines, and then demanded an additional $29,000 when the group of Bangladeshis finally reached the islands. When they could not pay, they were turned loose and found themselves “homeless and destitute.”

Schaffer led the questioning of Jahedi. In a clearly choreographed allotting of time by the Republican members of the committee, Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), a key Abramoff ally who chaired most of the hearing, ceded all of his questioning time for Schaffer to grill Jahedi.

Schaffer clearly came prepared for the hearing. He’d even phoned Nousher the night before in preparation.

When I called him today, Jahedi, now living in Washington, D.C., told me that Schaffer had called to introduce himself and ask “when did I come here, what I’m doing, this type of stuff.”

During the hearing, Schaffer, telling Jahedi that “I appreciate your taking my call last night,” went on to note that Jahedi had told him during that call that Jahedi was seeking asylum in the states. Schaffer proceeded to grill him on whether he knew that the Global Survival Network, a human rights group, had guaranteed his passage back to the islands if his bid for asylum was unsuccessful, implying that Jahedi was unduly beholden to his rescuers, who were severe critics of conditions on the islands.

From there, it went further downhill. Schaffer proceeded to question Jahedi about whether he’d received money from federal officials to stage a protest with other workers on the islands against the conditions there. Jahedi said he had not. Schaffer pressed, to the point where Rep. George Miller (D-CA), then the ranking member on the committee, interrupted Schaffer and asked for the source of his accusations.

“I will tell you with absolute certainty,” Schaffer said, that during his Abramoff-organized visit on the islands, he’d “interviewed a number of garment workers and others, in the case of this question, Bangladeshi 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.”

Finally, Jahedi interjected:

And–excuse me, sir. How do you believe that the person who told you that I received the money? Because I am a victim. I suffered. I care for–as a human being, I have little respect to myself. That way, my employer make me suffer. Of course, I will join with them and I will try my best to protest against this.

Having exhausted that, Schaffer moved to another subject: Jahedi had said the night before that someone had helped him compose his written testimony. “Who helped you write your speech?” Jahedi admitted that he’d had help from someone because “I am not so good in English.”

But Schaffer wasn’t satisfied. In the ensuing back and forth, Schaffer sought to nail Jahedi for using impossibly elevated language:

Mr. Schaffer. Okay. Okay. So who used the word “menial,” for example? Is that a word you used?

Mr. Jahedi. Sorry, sir?

Mr. Schaffer. The word “menial”? Is that a word you used?

Mr. Jahedi. No, no, sir.

Mr. Schaffer. No? What does “predatory human trafficker” mean?

Mr. Jahedi. Like the human being taking money from the people and take to the different place and can no way to get out of place.

Mr. Schaffer. Okay. How would you describe Washington, DC? Would you say it’s “hellish”?

Mr. Jahedi. No, sir.

Mr. Schaffer. You would not?

Mr. Jahedi. No.

Mr. Schaffer. What does that word mean to you?

Mr. Jahedi. Sorry, sir?

Mr. Schaffer. “Hellish”? What does that word mean to you?

Mr. Jahedi. Like what happen in Philippines, when I was in Philippines.

Mr. Schaffer. In the Philippines? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Schaffer concluded his questioning, evidently satisfied that Jahedi had described the Phillipines and not the Marianas as “hellish.” But in his prepared testimony, Jahedi had written that he’d spent 115 “hellish days” in the Philippines before the traffickers had transported the group of Bangladeshis to the Marianas.

When the questioning concluded, Rep. Miller thought some perspective was in order:

Mr. Chairman, I’d like to submit for the record some additional questions and I would also like to submit for the record of all of the witnesses who prepared their testimonies too. Because we are in receipt of e-mails that suggest that lawyers have been working on behalf of other witnesses and I didn’t know that was, you know, a problem in this country.