The seal of the Office of the Attorney General is seen on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, at the ITC building in Tamuning, Guam.
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero has invoked the Freedom of Information Act to dig deeper into questioned hiring practices at Attorney General Douglas Moylan’s office.
The governor’s concern involves the hiring of Douglas Moylan’s brother, Scott Moylan, as chief auditor, and the hiring and promotion of his fiancée, Sheenalyn Hawkins, who is now chief of staff at the Office of the Attorney General.
“The attorney general has publicly addressed allegations of impropriety regarding his hiring practices, but his excuses do not pass the smell test,” the governor’s communications director, Krystal Paco-San Agustin, stated. “The AG needs to put his money where his mouth is, provide documentation for his questionable hiring and procurements, and give our people the answers they need to judge these transactions for themselves.”
Leon Guerrero, acting on “legitimate concerns” that Douglas Moylan “is violating the law,” asked him to produce documentation to “ensure he is held to account.”
The FOIA inquiry makes 20 requests for documents and communications related to the unclassified positions held by the attorney general’s brother and fiancée and how they landed the high-ranking positions, including job announcements, the recruitment process and justification for hire and pay.
Scott Moylan is currently employed in the Government Corruption Division as the chief auditor, with a starting salary of $119,875.
Leon Guerrero’s FOIA request is seeking the rationale behind this, asking for documentation related to questions including why “Scott Moylan was hired into the Government Corruption Division of the Office of the Attorney General at a salary higher than any other employee of that Division.”
The FOIA request also asked for all communications between Douglas Moylan and Chief Deputy AG Joseph Guthrie related to the promotion of Hawkins as the chief of staff for the AG’s office.
While these two are a focus of the FOIA request, other potential family members of Douglas Moylan hired by the OAG are also being looked into.
Douglas Moylan confirmed that his office also employs his uncle Wilfred Aflague and his aunt Norma Aflague.
“I hired Wilfred Aflague immediately upon taking office as a special projects coordinator in January 2023, an unclassified position. He helped me in my campaign for attorney general and brought a wealth of experience, wisdom and knowledge again to this government office. Norma (Aflague) is my late mother’s youngest living sibling. She is retired from (the) government of Guam and has held numerous administrative management position(s) including chief of operations at (the Department of Public Works) and executive director of the Civil Service Commission.”
Norma Aflague was hired by Guthrie and is a special projects coordinator, Douglas Moylan said.
He said Wilfred Aflague is a distant relative.
“I hired Wilfred Aflague, who retired from GovGuam, and held numerous administrative management positions, including the former director of the Department of Administration under several former governors and previously worked for Attorney General Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson,” Douglas Moylan said.
The FOIA request also asks Douglas Moylan to produce documentation of any ethics training that he has taken since Jan. 1, 2023.
When it comes to concerns over procurements, the FOIA request seeks documents and communications related to office space at the Bank of Hawaii and the ITC Building and the rationale behind occupying a new space at the Bank of Hawaii, as well as the procurement files.
The FOIA request also asked for all contracts between the AG’s office and attorneys for the provision of legal services or consultant services and procurement records for any lawyer or law firm “engaged” by the AG’s office since Jan. 1, 2023.
“Attorney General Moylan claims to be the toughest law enforcer. However, with that responsibility comes the expectation that his office upholds the highest ethical and professional standards, which are called into question by his office’s suspicious hiring practices. Attorney General Moylan has diverted substantial resources to investigating and prosecuting so-called “government corruption” cases, all of which have been dismissed, while he openly and brazenly flouts the law,” the governor’s office said in a press release issued Friday.
The FOIA request additionally asked for the procurement record for the AG’s billboards, which the AG has erected monthly to align with his initiatives and efforts.
By law, the AG’s office has four business days from the receipt of the FOIA request to respond.
Although that is pending, Douglas Moylan on Friday called the governor’s motive behind the FOIA request into question.
“The governor’s release simply distracts the public from several serious legal issues that have brought this people’s elected law enforcement law firm at odds with the governor on numerous civil and criminal investigations and issues affecting all our people’s welfare, including the illegal use of (American Rescue Plan) funds, the governor’s inability to help the poor and homeless, as well as the overall deteriorating conditions in health care, education and public safety,” Douglas Moylan said.
According to the AG, the governor wants to replace him.
He also called the questioning of his hiring practices an attack.
“The governor is now attacking persons close to me. She is destroying their reputations with falsehoods. Her office’s comments defame these two persons by saying that I hired them. This is factually and patently untrue, subjecting them to a defamation lawsuit. This fact can be clearly ascertained in the government records,” Douglas Moylan said.
The AG provided documentation addressed to Guthrie recusing himself from personnel matters involving his brother and fiancée.
He also confirmed that there were no job announcements for the positions.
“The chief of staff and other ‘unclassified positions’ are not traditionally publicly noticed unless the elected official desires. The chief of staff especially is the political officer for the elected official, oftentimes the person who was most crucial in that politician’s election. Guam law and the personnel rules and regulations do not require unclassified position(s) to be noticed, most especially a chief of staff. The COS position is usually earned during an election. So if the politician wins, that politician can ensure promises are kept by selecting the most trusted, loyal and capable person to fulfill the promises to the voters,” Douglas Moylan told The Guam Daily Post.
Paco-San Agustin, in response to the AG’s statements, said, “The AG is breaking Guam law by illegally hiring unclassified employees. He’s engaged in seriously questionable ethics by hiring his brother and fiancee. And he’s hoping we are all too distracted by his antics to notice. Why else would he be so scared of a request for public records?”
“Although there may be my relatives, close and distant, in this law firm that either (the chief deputy attorney general) hired, or more distant relatives that I hired, my being related to some of the largest CHamoru families, they all were vetted for unclassified positions not on their family relationships, but upon resumes that included education, capability, competency, experience, loyalty, trustworthiness and having values consistent with this elected AG. This is a professional law firm with legal performance standards that no other government employees are neither licensed nor entrusted by our people to perform,” Douglas Moylan said.
“I need a loyal, educated and competent team of professionals to do my job. Otherwise, I would not want to serve as attorney general. I clearly can make more money in the private sector than serving as an elected AG, but (I) do it in service of the people who helped me to become an attorney,” he added.
