Burns-Abramoff-Marianas Islands

One of the sleezest deals DeLay and Abramoff were involved in was the Marianas Islands sweat shop deal. Knowing the details of this it is hard to explain how any Christian, evangelical or otherwise, could support DeLay. Well someone else has been tied to the Marianas deal. A few weeks ago we reported that Montana's Senator Conrad Burns might be the first casualty of the Abramoff deal when the conservative Missoula Missoulian sugggested he retire for the good of the Republican Party. Well today that same paper reports that Burns has been tied to the Marianas deal.

HELENA - U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., met with a Marianas official who had close ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff in the weeks before Burns received an Abramoff-related $5,000 contribution from the Marianas and reversed his earlier position on a bill about the islands.

The politician, Gov. Benigno Fitial, has said he will cooperate with the Justice Department's ongoing investigation into potential bribery of public officials involving Abramoff, a man Fitial once described as a “close friend,” according to Pacific Magazine, a Hawaii publication that covers the Pacific region.

The Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands is a U.S. territory near Guam. Citizens there are U.S. citizens, although the island is exempt from many U.S. standards, including minimum wage.

If you are not familiar with the Mariana deal the Missoulian gives a nice summary along with information on Burns' involvement.

In the late 1990s, some

58 percent of the island's population were noncitizen immigrants, drawn to the island's garment manufacturing jobs, government reports show. At the time, workers in the factories earned a minimum of $3.05 an hour, below the U.S. minimum wage of $5.15.

Burns voted against a bill in May 2001 that would have strengthened U.S. oversight over the commonwealth's labor and immigration laws. A little more than a year before Burns had not opposed an identical measure.

Burns has said the $5,000 donation from an Abramoff client had nothing to do with his 2001 change in stance on the bill. Rather, the senator told Lee Newspapers this month he was persuaded to vote against the measure after reading two government reports about the islands and meeting with Fitial, who was then speaker of the Marianas House of Representatives.

Initially, Burns said he didn't know why he changed his position on the bill.

Burns' records show the senator met with Fitial for 15 minutes on the afternoon of April 3, 2001.

Campaign finance records and reports in Pacific Magazine show Fitial is a former executive of Tan Holdings. Eloy Inos, another Tan Holdings executive, donated $5,000 to Burns' Friends of the Big Sky on April 20, 2001, a little more than two weeks after Fitial's meeting with the senator.

Inos worked on Fitial's transition team last December, shortly after Fitial won the islands' governor seat, Pacific Magazine reports.

Inos' check was among $12,000 Burns collected from Abramoff, his clients and associates in the weeks before the vote.

Tan Holdings, the largest employer on the islands, according to the company's Web site, is a member of the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association.

Records show the garment association hired Abramoff in 2001 to defeat laws that would put greater federal oversight over labor and immigration on the islands, and paid him $460,000.

It's not looking good for Conrad Burns. Montana has been sliding over towards the Blue side of the map anyway and if Burns should decide to run in 2006 it will probably be a pick up for the Democrats.

Via Josh Marshall