This year, Buckingham sued OPA in connection with its hiring of attorney Joseph Przyuski, a former assistant attorney general who was previously loaned by the AGO to assist in prosecuting cases investigated by OPA.
It was Przyuski who conducted an ethics probe on Buckingham regarding the AG’s controversial hosting of a partisan “meet and greet” gathering at the governor’s residence last year.
Recently, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s inspector general office disclosed that the $392,406 sole-source contract awarded by the governor, with the AG’s approval, to former Commerce Secretary Michael Ada, CNMI may have violated CNMI ethics rules and Procurement and Supply regulations and should be considered null and void.
Some of the local attorneys interviewed by this reporter suggested the appointment of an independent special counsel to look into the latest controversy plaguing the Fitial administration.
Asked for comment, Chief Prosecutor Michael Ernest said: “I do not comment on potential or pending cases.”
Buckingham as well as prosecutors from the AGO’s criminal division and the officers of the CNMI Bar Association had yet to respond to inquiries of this reporter.
A local lawyer, who declined to be identified, said: “The biggest implication that I see in this situation, is that you have the attorney general (who is supposed to be the chief law-enforcer for the CNMI) publicly admitting that the [AG’s Office] routinely signs off on contracts that contain ethical and/or legal concerns.”
Buckingham, the lawyer said, admitted that “if [the AG] were to hold up every contract that had ethical/legal concerns the business of the commonwealth would grind to a halt.”
The lawyer added: “This is truly scary. We have the office that is supposed to uphold laws admitting that they are complicit with laws being broken…on a regular basis. The [attorney general] is saying that the ‘business of the commonwealth’ is the business of entering into and honoring illegal and unethical contracts.”
According to the lawyer, “Would you want to do business with the CNMI after you heard that? If you were a contractor who lost out on a contract, wouldn’t you be wondering if the party that won the contract had one of those illegal/unethical contracts that the AG signed off on to keep the business of the commonwealth running? There is a huge potential for liability on the part of the CNMI, because of his ill-advised statements.”
Another local lawyer said “an independent special counsel should be appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate and commence prosecution.”
“The problem is that the governor and secretary of Finance would be the ones to sign off on the contract — the subjects of the investigation. The Legislature could conduct an oversight hearing,” said the lawyer, who also declined to be identified.
He added, “The situation reveals a problem with the system which needs to be corrected which is this: who prosecutes the prosecutors? Ultimately the citizens will correct the system if the Legislature and administration will not through referendum, special election, impeachment and an election.”
Another lawyer said the Legislature should pass legislation to address the situation.
“This whole process seems to suggest that the Legislature needs to step in and draft a statute that will provide for the appointment of an independent prosecutor in cases where the [AGO] is so embroiled in the controversy that the exercise of its prosecutorial discretion is compromised or gives the appearance to the public that it is compromised,” he said.
“The CNMI Constitution vests the prosecution of criminal matters in the [attorney general]. Therefore, the language would have to be drafted very carefully or a constitutional amendment might be required to implement the process,” he added.
Another lawyer said “Buckingham can appoint an independent investigator/prosecutor.”
“But will he do that?” the lawyer asked.
“I wonder why the U.S. Attorney’s Office decided not to prosecute. Interesting. Perhaps because it would be hard to prove a violation? In other jurisdictions, such an ethical lapse might bring the governor down, here [in the CNMI] I doubt it will have any real substantive effect. Which is too bad.”
