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October 08, 2008 05:24 PM UTC

Schaffer Fails "Political Polygraph," Sweatshop Lie Outed

  • 16 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

The Denver Post reports as a sidebar, oddly given the intense press coverage the Schaffer/Marianas scandal has attracted for months:

Claim: “I’m sure (Abramoff’s) not pleased with the sweatshop I helped shut down.”

– Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, speaking last week to The Denver Post editorial board about efforts to connect him to jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff

Facts: As a congressman, Schaffer visited Mariana Islands garment factories on a 1999 fact-finding trip paid for by the conservative Christian group Traditional Values Coalition, which was later linked to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. [Pols emphasis]

In April, Schaffer told The Post the islands’ imported labor was a “model” for U.S. immigration. Later, he told The Post and the Rocky Mountain News that “he was told” a factory had been shut down after he interceded.

Michael Rubin, a San Francisco attorney who negotiated $20 million settlements on behalf of garment factory workers, said one or two factories declared bankruptcy and closed after the 2003 settlement “but certainly no one was shut down as a result of a government investigation.” [Pols emphasis]

Rubin, who said he had been looking into labor practices in the Mariana Islands for months before filing the lawsuits in 1999, said, “I’m not aware of any (Mariana Islands) garment factories ever having been shut down by federal or (local) authorities.”

Schaffer’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, on Tuesday said: “Bob Schaffer was told after he left (the Mariana Islands) that because of a visit he made to one of those facilities, action was taken against that facility.”

Bottom line: Schaffer has been all over the place for months trying to defend himself from the charge that he helped conceal labor and immigration abuses in the Northern Mariana Islands, as part of a deliberate strategy conceived by jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The specific claim from Schaffer that he “helped shut down” one of the garment factories in question is considerably newer than the original reporting on the scandal from April, and immediately raised eyebrows since no corroborating evidence for the claim was ever put forward.

And now we know why: it’s because Bob Schaffer is lying. Just like he lied to reporters when he claimed the State Department never “discouraged” Schaffer’s oil company from traveling to Iraq in search of deals with regional governments–only a couple of weeks before it was proven the State Department had done exactly that.

Are we done here? Is Schaffer’s credibility totally destroyed yet? Are reporters aggressively fact-checking everything that comes out of his and henchman Dick Wadhams’ mouth, as they should do with anybody who demonstrably lies through their teeth? If not, why not?

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16 thoughts on “Schaffer Fails “Political Polygraph,” Sweatshop Lie Outed”

  2. Sure, it was probably taken off the congressional tour list.

    I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess Schaffer wasn’t lying when he said he was told something was done about one of the factories he visited. “Sure, Bob, we’ll take care of that. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. Now, do the Tans make that check out to Bob Schaffer for Congress, or is it Robert Schaffer?”

    Schaffer was elbows-deep in the sweatshop coverup — he should have known the Abramoff dog-and-pony show extended to whatever they “told” him, but he was being rewarded handsomely to look the other way. It’s part of the aggressively incurious attitude he cultivated while in Congress and has taken to a new level since.

    The problem is, Schaffer can’t conceives of himself as someone who turns a blind eye to sexual slavery, forced abortion and religious persecution — all for a Made in the USA label on a T-shirt — so the tale has grown in the telling, finally spilling over into absurdity at the Post editorial board. Schaffer’s biggest lie is the one he’s telling himself, that he did less than the most dishonorable thing when he had a chance in Congress.

  3. Schaffer’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, on Tuesday said: “Bob Schaffer was told after he left (the Mariana Islands) that because of a visit he made to one of those facilities, action was taken against that facility.”

    I don’t believe any told Bob this, since this is completely ridiculous, but Dick should provide the source of this claim and the press should force him to do it.  

    2. I don’t get it. If everything at those factories was just hunky dory when Schaffer visited, why would one of them have to be shut down as a result of his visit? Does not compute.

      In any event, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask: What was the candidate told, when was he told it – and by whom?

      And if after inquiry Schaffer’s memory is faulty he should honorably say, “I was told that one of the factories I visited had been shut down after my visit. I was under the impression that the shutdown was due at least in part to my visit, but that may not be the case.”

      Yeah. That’ll happen.

  4. Schaffer now claims his visit somehow (still a mystery about how) closed one of the “Saipan sweatshops” but that doesn’t square with his actions in the House committee, after he visited Saipan, where he attempted to undermine the credibility of witnesses who came to testify about the sweatshops. He did this after his congressional staff met with Abramoff’s staff who gave Schaffer his talking points for the committee hearing and, as we all know, Abramoff was hired by the owners of the Saipan sweatshops to oppose the imposition of federal labor laws on the Northern Marianas, a U.S. territory. In committee, Schaffer did the bidding of those who promoted forced abortions and slave labor conditions.

    Since his statements now indicate that he was aware of the problems on Saipan, why did he oppose amending federal statutes to force these same factories to comply with U.S. labor laws on wages and working standards? Why did he do Abramoff’s bidding? It didn’t “take a fox” to figure out that if your going into a committee hearing planning to undermine the witnesses whose testimony supports amending U.S. labor law to impose those laws on the Northern Marianas that your supporting the factory owners who are against that very amendment. Schaffer should be ashamed of himself. Instead, his latest explanation, coupled with the statement from the attorney who handled the lawsuit over these working conditions, means that Schaffer is attempting to lie his way out of this.

    In 2000 on his campaign website when he was running for the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Schaffer said:  “Republicans replace their own leaders for moral failure. Democrats promote theirs in such cases.” Apparently when it comes to his own “moral failings” he wants the citizens of Colorado to promote him to the position United States Senator. The voters of Colorado should deal with this in the appropriate manner, by thrashing Mr. Schaffer at the polls in November. In meantime, if Mr. Schaffer had one ounce of sense he would resign the Republican nomination and leave the party the opportunity to nominate someone with a moral compass.

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