Zachares' corruption plea last week includes the vague admission that he got his job on the committee "with the assistance of Abramoff and others." But the Justice Department has yet to explain how Zachares got the job, and then-Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) has declined to comment on the matter.

Sources said that Young met Zachares before he was hired, and that Zachares joined the committee about a month after a senior Transportation and Infrastructure staffer named Duane Gibson left to join Abramoff's lobbying practice at Greenberg Traurig.

In that capacity, Zachares met Young on at least two occasions, sources said. In February 1999, Young -- then serving as chairman of the House Resources Committee with jurisdiction over the territories -- led a Congressional delegation to Guam and the Marianas to discuss economic development, labor and immigration issues....

..."We met in the federal office" in Saipan for briefings, [then-Guam Delegate Robert] Underwood recalled, "and there were different federal officials from [the Department of] Interior and the U.S. attorney's office giving these reports. ... Mark's position was labor or immigration for the Northern Marianas -- he was sitting in the room along with us."

Seven months later, during a Resources Committee hearing that Young chaired, Zachares sat at the witness table in the Longworth House Office Building hearing room and answered questions from the chairman about the labor force in the Marianas.