“AT the end of the day, the JGO Committee is to blame for these private attorney expenses,” said Gov. Ralph DLG Torres on Wednesday regarding the fees paid for the legal representation of executive branch officials and personnel subpoenaed by the House Committee on Judicial and Governmental Operations.
“As I have previously stated, since the beginning, I have extended many invitations to members of the Legislature regarding potential questions or concerns they may have or just to have fair and open conversations. However, they chose to take a different route that included subpoenaing, investigating, and questioning several dedicated government workers, taking precious time away from the performing of their important duties,” the governor said.
Everyone has a right to counsel, he added, most especially CNMI government employees who are hauled in to testify before the JGO Committee hearings.
He noted that all these employees, including himself, were served with a subpoena.
“Still, despite the answers given truthfully and under oath by the witnesses subpoenaed to the JGO Committee hearings, members of the committee were not satisfied. This is because they had a political agenda to fulfill,” said Torres.
He said the hearings did not provide any concrete reasons for his impeachment and were solely based on a narrative created by committee members who disagreed with the legal authorities granted to him as governor of this Commonwealth to spend funding as he sees fit and proper.
“When those who were subpoenaed by the JGO Committee requested representation from the Attorney General’s Office pursuant to law, the requests were denied due to possible conflicts of interest. Because of the AGO’s denial of representation, private attorneys had to be hired, all of whom were approved by the attorney general to provide legal representation,” the governor said.
“This was particularly true in the matter concerning my own legal representation in my official capacity as governor. It was essential that I received representation by an attorney, including expert attorneys in this subject matter, as the setting, format, and lines of questioning asked across our branches of government contradict the separation of powers clause of the Constitution,” Torres said.
“At the end of the day, the JGO Committee is to blame for these private attorney expenses. These witnesses, who were subpoenaed in their official capacities, are not experts in these legal formal proceedings.”
He reiterated that the right to counsel is one of the most important basic rights granted by both the CNMI and U.S. Constitutions.
“Therefore, I support their decisions to invoke their rights as they saw fit in order to protect their freedoms from biased lines of questioning and potential legal ramifications. If I was requested to approve hiring private attorneys for these employees, I would also approve the request in order to protect the rights that all CNMI government employees have. To deny protecting these CNMI government employees, their right to counsel would be a violation of their constitutional rights,” Torres said.
According to a government spreadsheet for a payment voucher, the House JGO’s investigation of the governor’s public expenditures cost his office $121,219.28 in legal and other fees.
The governor is also expected to incur additional legal cost in the impeachment trial that the Senate will soon conduct.
He will be removed from office if at last six of the nine senators vote for his conviction.
Ralph DLG Torres
