http://www.guampdn.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic.../604110302/1002Abramoff really was a bad bad man! Who would have thought?KT
Threat to national security
Federal source cites concerns over CNMI border control
By Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno
Pacific Daily News
gdumat-ol@guampdn.com
In the many years instructor Sam McPhetres has taught at the Northern Marianas College in Saipan, his students have not been willing to engage in conversations about Jack Abramoff, the fallen lobbyist.
"My experience, in trying to discuss the Abramoff issue, is I get blank looks," said McPhetres, who has been teaching political science in Saipan for well over a decade.
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The indifference McPhetres saw in his Saipan students mirrors the lack of interest among Guam voters, who have said that their choice for governor in November's election won't be swayed by any candidate's alleged Abramoff-linked past.
But the Abramoff issue extends beyond the previously disclosed Guam and Saipan payments to Abramoff lobby shops and the lobbyist's alleged influence in past Guam elections.
Abramoff's Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands involvement has raised national security implications, a federal source said.
At issue, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity, is the CNMI's local control of its borders. Foreigners entering the CNMI don't go through the stringent application process non-U.S. citizens go through at U.S. embassies to get visas to enter the United States, including Guam.
Rota and other islands in the CNMI have been the launching points from which illegal immigrants are smuggled into Guam, according to a 1999 federal government report before the post 9-11 security worries. The CNMI island closest to Guam, Rota, is visible from Mount Santa Rosa on northern Guam.
The CNMI can be an easy back-door entry to a terror attack on America, and Guam -- as host to major military installations -- is at the doorstep of such easy border access, said the federal source.
Yet a post-9-11 federal report that raised red flags about the national security implications of the CNMI immigration practices was stifled when the CNMI government was paying Abramoff, according to the federal source.
Abramoff is on record for lobbying against legislation to apply U.S. immigration border controls in the commonwealth. With Abramoff's lobbying, Rep. Tom DeLay, the U.S. House of Representatives' former No. 2, became a champion of local immigration authority in the CNMI.
But DeLay recently announced his decision to step down from Congress after his name became associated with Abramoff's influence-peddling activities. Two of DeLay's aides have pleaded guilty in the federal case in Washington against Abramoff for his alleged attempts to influence certain U.S. lawmakers with overseas trips, campaign donations and other perks.
"There is national security concern, and that is the very thing they were suppressing," the federal source said of efforts to reform immigration rules in the Northern Marianas.
With the expected military buildup on Guam, concerns about the CNMI islands' potential for back-door entry for terrorism are expected to resurface, said the source.
"The military would be a lot safer on Guam, and Guam would be a lot safer," said the source, if foreigners entering the commonwealth go through the same screening applied to non-U.S. citizens entering Guam.
Other controversies
In Washington, Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo and several other members of Congress have asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in a letter last January for an investigation outside of Justice's realm on Abramoff's involvement of CNMI immigration issues.
In pressing for a more independent investigation, the Democrats wrote that there have been "allegations that Mr. Abramoff had influenced senior (Justice Department) officials to suppress an immigration report" on the CNMI.
The same Democrats also are asking for a Justice outsider to investigate the demotion of Frederick Black from being the chief of federal prosecutions on Guam.
The Justice Department in a letter on Feb. 3, states the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General is investigating. And the FBI also is working with career prosecutors in the department on an Abramoff investigation, wrote U.S. Assistant Attorney General William Moschella.
Abramoff's sentence in the influence-peddling case in Washington is on hold while he continues to cooperate in a continuing federal investigation into his lobbying activities, according to court papers in the District Court in Washington, D.C.
The fallen lobbyist also has been sentenced to almost six years in a Florida case in which Abramoff and a partner faked a $23 million wire transfer to obtain a $60 million loan, wire reports stated.
The Pacific Daily News has confirmed that Abramoff's CNMI involvement is something the FBI has looked into.
CNMI activities
C. Sebastian Aloot, a former CNMI attorney general who moved on to a job in Washington as senior trial attorney with Justice's Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-related Unfair Employment Practices, has confirmed that the FBI had asked him about Abramoff-related activities in the CNMI.
"Someone suggested to them that I might have some information on the CNMI government, Jack's activities for the CNMI, and how he came to be hired by the CNMI. It was part of their effort to ... obtain names of people who might have had a more direct involvement in the Abramoff contract and/or activities under it," Aloot wrote in response to e-mailed questions.
The CNMI's new governor, Benigno Fitial, was unable to comment on e-mailed questions as of press time.
Fitial hasn't turned his back on Abramoff. His ties to Abramoff go back to when Fitial was an executive for Tan Holdings, a Saipan company whose subsidiary manufactures garments, and to when Fitial was a CNMI lawmaker. 
In a letter to Abramoff's judge in the Florida case, Fitial, using the local government seal, asked for leniency for Abramoff. 
"During one of the darkest periods in our short history as a largely self-governing commonwealth of the United States, Jack Abramoff emerged as a genuine champion and defender of our islands," Fitial wrote to District Judge Paul Huck.
The CNMI government in previous years had paid at least $11 million to lobby shops associated with Abramoff, Pacific Daily News files state. 
Fitial's letter described Abramoff as a champion of the CNMI's "cause for democratic self-government and economic opportunity and self-sufficiency."
"Jack loved his job." Fitial wrote. "He was getting paid doing what he loved most: championing causes he genuinely believed in." 
In the CNMI, McPhetres said he's unaware of any effort in the local government to support efforts toward reform local immigration to conform to U.S. rules.
If leaders do so, McPhetres said, "that would be acknowledging that a problem exists."
Originally published April 11, 2006
