THE “word war” between the House and Senate leaderships continues.
“I am unable to accept or decline to file an appearance on this matter,” House Vice Speaker Blas Jonathan T. Attao said in a letter to Senate President Jude U. Hofschneider on Monday, in response to the Senate’s designation of Attao as the House prosecutor in the impeachment proceedings against Gov. Ralph DLG Torres.
According to the Senate impeachment rules, if the House speaker declines to serve as House impeachment prosecutor, the chair of the House impeachment committee “at the time the impeachment vote was voted on and passed” will then serve in his stead.
The Senate Special Committee on the Impeachment Hearing chair, Sen. Karl King-Nabors, who serves as the presiding hearing officer, gave Attao until 4 p.m. on Monday, March 21 to file an appearance.
However, according to Attao, by the time the House adopted the articles of impeachment, the House impeachment committee no longer existed and Attao ceased to be its chair.
“Accordingly,” he said, King-Nabors “must not have read the rules or does not comprehend them because he sent the notice to the former chairman of a non-existent committee. Therefore, his notice, like his comprehension of applicable House rules, amounts to nothing.”
Attao said, “Even if I was in a position to serve as the impeachment prosecutor, I hereby decline.”
He said the Senate’s role of hearing the impeachment case and convicting upon a two-thirds vote could be reasonably viewed to include setting forth certain administrative and technical guidelines and procedures.
“But requiring the House to file a notice of appearance becomes unreasonable when the Senate claims the right to name the prosecutors,” he added.
The lawmaker said the issuance of the notice itself amounts to senatorial overreach, given that House Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez is the presiding officer of the House and has the sole power to issue orders to members of the House.
“As a member of the CNMI Senate, Senator King-Nabors lacks any authority over members of the CNMI House of Representatives. Period,” Attao said.
“Justice demands that the House appoint its own impeachment prosecutors,” he added.
He said the House stands ready to enter a notice of appearance based on fair and reasonable terms.
“The Senate’s role in this process is simple: ‘to convict after hearing.’ The Constitution provides that the impeachment hearing shall be held by the Senate. It does not provide that the Senate shall dictate how the House performs its constitutional role. It does not permit the Senate to micromanage the proceedings,” Attao said.
Like Speaker Villagomez, Vice Speaker Attao said only the Legislative Bureau is constitutionally permitted to provide all required services to the Legislature in connection with the duties and responsibilities during sessions and committee meetings.
He noted that attorney Joey McDoulett has been retained by the Office of the Senate President, neither employed nor contracted by the Legislative Bureau, to provide legal assistance to the Senate during official sessions and joint committee meetings on the impeachment proceedings.
Furthermore, attorney Viola Alepuyo was also consulted by Senator King-Nabors regarding the Senate impeachment rules, only to later become the governor’s personal legal counsel in these proceedings.
Attao said Alepuyo has served since 2017 as the president of “Friends of Ralph,” the fundraising committee to elect Torres.
In addition, she also represented a number of executive witnesses in the House Committee on Judiciary and Governmental Operations hearings on the governor’s public expenditures.
“That Viola Alepuyo is affiliated with Governor Torres is a fact beyond any reasonable dispute. She may wear many hats, but she does not wear the hat of CNMI Legislative Bureau legal counsel. Accordingly, Ms. Alepuyo’s assistance, well-documented by Sen. Nabors, presents another constitutional violation that makes the rules themselves unconstitutional. The governor’s army of attorneys, nearly in the double digits, do not appear to be confident in their capacity to win legal arguments on a level playing field if they feel the need to rig the table so brazenly,” Attao said.
He added that King-Nabors admitted that Alepuyo is a close family friend of his.
As such, Attao said, King-Nabors should have immediately recused himself after acknowledging the appearance or fact of impropriety.
“It is now Senator Nabors who wants to make a non-issue of an issue,” he said.
The vice speaker also said that King-Nabors merely requesting that the governor withdraw Alepuyo as his attorney of record is “inconceivable.”
“Even after acknowledging the ‘appearance of impropriety,’ it is inconceivable that he would ultimately leave the matter to the governor’s sole discretion,” he said.
Attao said even this communication between King-Nabors and the governor is ex parte communications, further demonstrating that King-Nabors “either failed to read his rules, or he did not comprehend them.”
Attao said it is fundamentally unfair that attorneys from the Senate and the governor were afforded access to the rules as they were being drafted while the House members, with the burden to prosecute in accordance with these rules, were not given the same opportunity.
He said according to Rule 6(c) of the Senate impeachment rules, Senator King-Nabors was supposed to take an oath administered by the Senate clerk to serve as presiding hearing officer who will preside over the Senate hearing relating to the articles of impeachment.
However, absent such action in an official session by the entire Senate, King-Nabors’ authority is legally nulled, Attao said.
“Senator Nabors lacks any authority unless or until the matter is brought before the entire Senate. Until then, he has no authority whatsoever to issue any notices, press releases, orders, letters, or any other communications, ex parte or otherwise, relevant to the impeachment trial. If there was actual compliance with Rule 6, then I respectfully request a copy of the Senate agenda and the official transcript of the relevant proceedings,” Attao said.
He said the Senate should consider removing King-Nabors as presiding hearing officer, dissolve the “unconstitutional” committee, and allow the governor to retain his choice of counsel.
“Senator Nabors will then be prevented from committing further ethical improprieties and the full Senate will be allowed to hear all the evidence on all the articles. There should be no need to prosecute the governor twice,” said Attao, calling the governor’s team of lawyers “the taxpayer paid team.”
The vice speaker also said that the rules were not presented on the Senate agenda nor on the official Senate session 72 hours prior to the session that adopted them, and prohibited oral testimony by the public, thus violating the Open Government Act, he added.
Attendees of a meeting that violates the Open Government Act are personally liable for a $100 civil penalty for the first offense, he said.
“The Senate should consider that impeachment is not about ‘undoing the will of the people,’ as Senator Nabors has suggested. The CNMI Constitution included impeachment to protect the Commonwealth and to provide a remedy for egregious abuses of office. Impeachment was accomplished by 15 bipartisan votes that included Democrat, Republican, and Independent members of the CNMI House — far more than the four or five partisan senators who will stand in the way of convicting the governor,” Attao said.
Attao is among the four former House Republicans who voted to impeach the Republican governor, and are supporting the independent gubernatorial candidacy of another former Republican, Lt. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios.
Palacios will be governor if six of the nine senators vote to convict Torres who has denied the allegations of commission of felonies, corruption, and neglect of duty.
According to Attao, “The House and the people of the Commonwealth have every interest in a fair, diligent, and speedy impeachment trial. The Senate impeachment rules in their current form do not provide that process. In colluding with the governor’s attorney and engaging in impermissible ex parte communications, and in adopting rules that violate the Constitution and the Open Government Act and deprive the House of the ability to select its own impeachment prosecutors, it is the Senate alone that is prolonging this process.”
Attao said, “Senator Nabors has claimed to the press that he wants to proceed with no further delay, but he himself first postponed then canceled altogether the prehearing conference.”
Attao said that he and Reps. Celina R. Babauta, Donald M. Manglona, Corina L. Magofna, and Leila Haveia F. Staffler have all been preparing as a team to prosecute the impeachment case together, “and expeditiously, before the Senate,” as Speaker Villagomez has already advised to Senate President Hofschneider.
“I join Speaker Villagomez in urging you to acknowledge this decision by the House so that we can move on to the presentation of evidence at trial. The Senate’s insistence that the House comply with unconstitutional and unfair rules will be the only reason that this process will be delayed,” the vice speaker said in closing.
Vice Speaker Blas Jonathan Attao listens to Rep. Donald Manglona during a break from a House session last year. Also in photo is Rep. Tina Sablan.
