THE testimony of the DPS Commissioner who has less training than a lot of the experienced police officers on the force actually contributed more proof of guilt by the alleged Godfather of the CNMI, Gov. Ralph Torres. He is truly looking more and more like a real Godfather in a crime movie given the amount of protection he has been using for himself and his entire family. Who in the CNMI really needs full time & armed protection and the Governor even enlists on occasion four armed police officers at one time for protection? It seems he actually thinks he IS a real Godfather or something out or the ordinary from previous Governors as he is using police like bodyguards for his appearance’s sake of power because he is not in any danger. The pathetic part about all this protection is there has NEVER been a recorded “threat” of any harm coming to the Governor nor his family. The Governor even meets up with his protection detail on Guam but didn’t take any protection detail with him to the U. S. mainland — what in the world is that all about???
But it seems obvious that the Governor likes and even craves the “special attention of police officers” that displays his power and importance as Governor with a protection detail. For me, he’s a big “show-off” because he really didn’t need anyone to protect him, not to mention the lack of any need to protect the first lady. And using the Police officers like “contract workers doing things for the First Lady and their children” just reeks of overstatement and the desire to appear important, which could even be viewed as “petty & narcistic.” For example: It was revealed in the Hearing with the DPS Commissioner that the Governor travel to the mainland WITHOUT his protection detail but wanted his detail of officers for him and his wife to meet him and be present when he arrived on Guam — which appears to be nothing but “grandstanding to showing-off his status as Governor” when he was back in the neighborhood on Guam!
A Contemptuous Disrespectful Governor
It is truly amazing to see someone who claims to be the Governor continuously LYING, Deflecting & Gaslighting his People — for TRUE! First, he tells us “I have nothing to hide, then he tells us he will explain everything but now he is refusing to testify and is even taking the JGO to Court” in an attempt to avoid testifying. This Governor has displayed contempt with extreme disrespect FOR the People and OUR Constitution by refusing to testify. He is now asking the Court to step in and keep him from testifying but he is in for a BIG surprise. I’m sure OUR judges are not going to fall for his “executive privilege BS” that doesn’t have a single case-file to justify his privilege, especially when this is about HIS PERSONAL BEHAVIOR and not “State Activities.”
FYI Governor, “all privileges are subject to being REVOKED, especially when they are associated with an alleged CRIME.” Executive Privileges are “NOT Guaranteed RIGHTS in our Constitution” and Executive Privileges are no different than any other privilege like getting a driver’s license which can be revoked. The JGO is not asking anything that has to do with “secrets of the state” — which means there is nothing they will be asking the Governor that has any potential to do harm to the CNMI making the Governor’s argument a bunch of nonsense! The Governor may fool some of us-folks-in-the-cheap-seats who are his die-heart followers but he won’t fool the Judge that will hear his pathetic cry. The more you squirm and try to get-out of trouble the deeper you sink into the abyss of being viewed as a real Godfather of a Criminal Organization that just got CAUGHT — for TRUE! To be continued: One people One Direction.
The writer is an Economist, Political Scientist, retired teacher, former CNMI Board of Education Member, James Madison Fellow (U.S. Constitutional Scholar), a Fulbright-Hays & Humanities Scholar who resides in Kagman III.
Ambrose M. Bennett
