Fitial said although it is unfortunate that his signature was forged, he won’t make it an issue because the CNMI is facing bigger problems.
He stressed that he signed a similar letter, along with the governors of Guam, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands, in Washington, D.C. during the Interagency Group on Insular Areas meeting in February.
“We signed that and turned it over to the new secretary of the Interior [Ken Salazar],” the governor told the Variety.
The questionable joint letter was dated March 4.
The governor said Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. showed him the letter with his forged signature.
“When Charles showed me the letter, I told him that’s not my signature,” the governor said.
The CNMI House of Representatives and the Senate expressed deep concern over the governor’s forged signature in a letter asking Obama to divest authority to the U.S. Department of the Interior in disbursing the stabilization funds under the $787 billion federal stimulus law.
The law empowers the U.S. Department of Education to disburse the stabilization grants to the insular areas.
Governors have the discretionary power to reprogram up to 18 percent of stabilization funds that will be given to their respective jurisdiction.
Senate President Pete P. Reyes, R-Saipan, said it appears that only one person signed the March 4 letter for all four governors of the insular areas.
But Fitial said his faked signature is now trivial and should not be an issue.
“Why are they making a big fuss on this signature? How do they know that it was sent to the White House? There was no stamp,” he said.
“A lot of people are wasting time on this. This is not newsworthy. It’s nonsense. I am not a bit bothered by it because I know that the document that we signed was [the one] delivered to the White House,” he added.
The collective request of the governors of the insular areas was reportedly denied by the Obama administration.
Fitial said he did not get an official response from the White House about it but heard it from Interior.
“I got an unofficial notice from the Interior that the request wasn’t approved,” he said.
