Widen OIA probe • CNMI as political weapon in war vs US Republican lawmakers assailed

A California legislator has slammed the Office of Insular Affairs for using labor and immigration issues in the Northern Marianas to launch what he calls “coordinated political assault” against the U.S. House leadership as well as GOP rank and file members in Congress.

Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-California) urged the House Resources Committee to widen its ongoing investigation on OIA officials, who allegedly used government time and resources to seek damaging information against GOP lawmakers.

“Many of us who have questioned OIA’s tactics in the past no longer have any reason to trust either its integrity or impartiality,” he said in a letter addressed to his Republican colleagues in the Congress.

According to Doolittle, this smear campaign initiated by OIA was directed specifically toward House leaders, its Republican members and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) because of their stand on labor and immigration issues in the Commonwealth.

“In fact, the CNMI was a convenient excuse for illegal, partisan campaigning assistance in the form of made-to-order press releases and opposition research offered to Democratic campaigns,” he explained.

Doolittle’s reaction came in the wake of a probe being conducted by Resources Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) against some Interior officials, including retired OIA public information officer David North, for possible violations of the Hatch Act.

The panel has alleged that they had used their positions to provide key information to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) aimed at unseating incumbent Republican members of Congress who are known to be sympathetic to the CNMI.

While hailing Young’s efforts to look deeper into the illegal political activities, Doolittle said the inquiry should be expanded to include all allies that “OIA and DCCC operatives may have enlisted” in the campaign.

This will help shed light on the motives of the mounting actions being proposed in the Congress as well as by some private organizations in an attempt by the White House to strip CNMI authority over its immigration, minimum wage and custom laws.

“The Resources investigation needs to be as wide ranging as necessary to understand the full extent of (the Clinton) Administration complicity,” he pointed out.

“Given other recent developments affecting the CNMI, including a nationwide union campaign against CNMI products, it would behoove the Committee to cast its net wide in search of all the allies,” Doolittle added.

Likewise, the representative warned his partymates not to be swayed by “legislative approaches whose central purpose lies in dividing Republicans than in advancing the well being of our insular possessions.”

Doolittle noted in particular the pending legislation that will impose taxes on locally-manufactured products for export to the mainland, saying that it is not just a “betrayal of conservative principles,” but also aimed at “manipulating Republicans by waving the flag.”

He said “it is hardly patriotic to violate federal laws separating partisan politics from the civil service.”

“Until we understand the full extent of wrongdoing at OIA and those accountable have been identified and punished, let’s not be fooled again. Neither OIA nor this Administration is on the level when it comes to the CNMI,” Doolittle added.