fees paid to hire Abramoff from 1994-2001It seemed inevitable that at least some of those tentacles reaching back a few years into organizations that are no longer conspicuous players in the Abramoff sleaz-o-rama would prove to still have life in them. Whether there is any chance of the Marianas recovering any of the millions they paid good old Jack remains to be seen, and the case would have been a lot stronger if it did not have so conspicuous an element of piling-on - and years after the fact at that.
Time to get out the corn-popper again!
The governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands wants a Seattle-based law and lobbying firm to pay back millions of dollars the government paid to hire lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Gov. Benigno Fitial said in a letter to Preston Gates this week that the firm overbilled the Pacific island government, Charles Reyes, the governor's press secretary, confirmed yesterday.
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Fitial, who is reported to have helped get island business for Abramoff, also is worried about the bad publicity the scandal has brought on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).
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The letter was reported in Tuesday's edition of the Saipan Tribune, which obtained a copy. Reyes said yesterday that the government would not release the letter. The Tribune reported that the letter asks the firms to repay all the lobbying fees paid to hire Abramoff from 1994-2001. The paper said the government claims it was overbilled, sometimes triple-billed, and alleges other improprieties, but the paper had no details.
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