THE Senate will proceed with its hearing on the impeachment of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, Senate President Jude U. Hofschneider said on Thursday.
He added that the House of Representatives “has failed to live up to [a] very simple task,” referring to the submission of the impeachment record.
“The House has also refused to permit its prosecutor to act as a prosecutor, instead insisting that it will only proceed if its demand to name five House members is accepted by the Senate,” Hofschneider said.
“Contrary to recent statements about the process, the House’s failures do not result in the dismissal of the impeachment. We take this duty seriously and have moved with all deliberate speed to the goal of a hearing,” he added.
He reiterated that the supposedly “meticulously prepared” impeachment record submitted by the House “is a disorganized mess.”
“The proposed record claimed to include documents that were not present at all, pages lacked page numbers or any identifying marks, pages were out of order in the document, and over 3,000 pages were missing from the final document,” Hofschneider said.
The submitted record shows “a lack of proper leadership in the guidance of the prosecution, perhaps due to the House’s refusal to participate [in the Senate trial] in any meaningful way.”
But the Senate president said the House clerk cannot be held responsible for the “inappropriate record.”
“Such responsibility lies with the group of representatives that have claimed to be the prosecutors for the House,” he said.
The Senate rules of impeachment, he added, “placed an extremely light burden on the House for the impeachment record.”
Very simple
Those rules required the impeachment record to be organized by “three very simple concepts,” which are consecutive pagination, a table of contents, and organized first by Article of Impeachment and second by chronological order, he added.
“The House knew of the requirements to produce an impeachment record that would allow all parties to quickly refer to any document without difficulty. It goes without saying that documents that are stated to be in the impeachment record should be included there,” Hofschneider said.
“It is apparent that the House clerk provided to the Senate exactly what was provided to her. Unfortunately, the documents provided to the House clerk did not include all of what was claimed to be included. To make things worse, the House chose not to include any transcripts of the proceedings as required by Rule 9(b). No explanation has been provided by the House for this. Instead, the House maintains that the record was in substantial compliance.”
Hofschneider said the House has had ample time to provide a record to the Senate, adding that the Senate rules of impeachment were published for all to review and comment.
“At no time was there any objection either before the Senate or in a public forum about the content of the impeachment record to be provided to the Senate,” he said.
From the date of passage of the rules on March 3, 2022, Hofschneider said the House had 14 days to prepare the record.
He said the House asked for and received a seven-day extension pursuant to Rule 9(c)(1) to provide the record to the Senate.
Additional extension
Hofschneider said the House could have requested an additional extension pursuant to Rule 9(c)(2).
“The House never made any such request. If the record was in such a disorganized state, the House had ample time to request an extension.
“Now the House is requesting an extension not supported by any rule and demanding an accommodation while simultaneously complaining that the format the Senate has requested is illogical. It is not illogical to request documents be ordered by page number.
“To suggest it is easy for all parties to find a document that is given a page number but does not appear in the record in page number order is illogical.
“It is not illogical to request evidence to be presented in chronological order.
“If the House had presented the evidence, as they suggest, in order of the event around which the evidence relates, that would still be chronological. They did not.
“A table of contents should also reflect the actual contents. The table of contents did not agree in description or page number to what was in the record. Nor did the record actually contain what was listed in the table of contents.
“In short, the record as submitted was a disorganized jumble of documents listed out of order or missing altogether. An organized and responsible prosecutor would have overseen the submission to guarantee it matched the requirements,” the Senate president said.
Legitimate desire
“I want to make it very clear that the House clerk has personally performed as well as could be expected in the absence of guidance from a prosecutor or House leadership,” the Senate president said.
“It would have been more appropriate for the House leadership to request an extension based on a legitimate desire to provide a record in compliance with the rules, while citing a provision of the rules that would permit such an extension.
“Any action that we take that goes against the rules we have passed would risk any result in the proceedings. If we were to vote to impeach, the impeached official would have solid grounds to overturn the impeachment for failure to follow the established rules. I know the House clerk to be dedicated to her role. The House leadership should not have expected the House clerk to request an unauthorized extension. The House leadership should have accepted its role, recognized its error, and made a request the Senate had the authority to accommodate,” Hofschneider said.
The governor was impeached by the House of Representatives on Jan. 12, 2022 by a vote of 15 to 4 with 1 abstention, on allegations of felonies of theft, corruption and neglect of duty. He has denied the charges.
At least six of the nine senators must vote to convict in order to remove the governor from office.
Jude U. Hofschneider
