(Press Release) — Democratic Rep. Christina Marie “Tina” Sablan delivered the following statement during the public comments section of the Senate’s impeachment hearing Monday, May 16, 2022:
“To the people of the Commonwealth,
“What you witnessed today in the Senate Chamber was the ongoing betrayal of your trust. Governor Ralph Torres was supposed to be on trial in the Senate. He was charged by the House of Representatives with six articles of impeachment for theft, corruption, and neglect of duty. The Senate had a solemn obligation to deliver due process in a fair trial.
“But what began last Friday and what continued today was not a trial at all.
“There were no prosecutors, because the Senate leadership rejected the team of House prosecutors that the Speaker appointed.
“There was no evidence, because the Senate leadership rejected the entire House impeachment record — all 8,000 pages and hours of video-recorded witness testimonies.
“The Senate heard only one side in this proceeding — the Governor’s, through his defense attorneys. The Governor’s attorneys said it is the House’s burden to prove the impeachment charges. And that’s true. But what is also true is that the House’s hands were unjustly tied by Senate rules that were drafted by the Governor’s counsel, in collusion with the Governor’s allies in the Senate.
“This was not a trial. This was a travesty of justice.
“Because there were no prosecutors, there was no cross-examination of any of the Governor’s witnesses. There were no House objections to the procedural violations, no rebuttals to the misinformation presented by the defense.
“The Senators themselves were deprived of their right under the rules to freely ask questions of the witnesses, because the Senate President compelled them to put all their questions in writing, to him and him alone. And then he screened their questions, censored some of them, and restricted follow-ups.
“Nothing in the Senate rules requires the Senators to reduce all their questions to writing. But forcing them to do so anyway achieves the goal of frustrating any attempts by any Senator to get to the truth.
“The Governor’s counsel, on the other hand, had no such restrictions.
“If the Senate had allowed the House to fully and fairly participate in the trial, with all the evidence we have to back each and every article of impeachment, they and you, the people we serve, would have had the opportunity to hear both sides. You would have had the opportunity to get to the truth.
“And here’s the truth, that the House would have presented, had we been allowed.
“The law is very clear: public funds shall not be used to pay for first-class travel for anyone, period. Did the governor travel first-class on taxpayer dime? Yes he did, often with his wife, at least 54 times between 2016 and 2019 according to the records. Did he break the law? Yes. Did he continue to fly first-class at public expense, even after he was warned by multiple people to stop? Yes.
“Everything that the defense presented on Article III, Corruption – Unlawful First Class Travel Travel, was mere distraction. Proposed regulations that purported to authorize first-class travel for the governor would not trump the law even if they were adopted. And raising accusations about other government officials who supposedly traveled first-class too — without verifying that those first-class tickets were in fact paid by the government and not complimentary upgrades or paid out of pocket — is irresponsible, and misleading.
“The governor’s ‘surprise’ witness, former AG investigations chief Mr. Lawrence Pangelinan testified that the Attorney General asked him to investigate the governor’s travel in 2019. This ‘ambush’ witness said he had opposed AG’s request. Why? Because, Mr. Pangelinan said, it was an investigation targeting one person.
“Let’s stop to think about that. Most investigations are by their nature targeted. In 2019, documents showing the governor’s lavish public expenditures, including unlawful taxpayer-funded first-class travel, began circulating widely. It caused a storm of public outrage. We in the House could not turn a blind eye and we also began our own investigation of the governor in 2019.
“Governor Torres was the target of investigation because there was evidence that he broke the law and abused his office.
“The governor is also accused of multiple counts of theft — theft of utility services in Article I, and theft of public funds, in Article II.
“Were this an actual fair, Senate trial, House prosecutors would have questioned the mischaracterizations of the record by Mr. Gary Camacho of the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation. We would have presented to the Senate the actual billings for two of the governor’s private residences, including the 16-month period during which they overlapped. We would have shown the CUC memos confirming the governor’s multiple accounts, including the metered account tied to the piggery on the governor’s estate. We would have shown all the proof of payments by the government, including the reimbursements Governor Torres obtained for himself.
“We would have explained to the Senate the lack of any legal authority to permit the use of taxpayer funds for utilities at the private residences of the governor, or any politician. We would have reminded them of the public purpose requirement for the use of public funds in our constitution, in statute, and in finance regulations.
“We would have also reminded them that we actually tried, the House and the Senate, in the budget act that we passed, to explicitly prohibit the continued improper use of public funds to pay for the private utility expenses of elected officials. And the governor vetoed that.
“Four counts of theft of public funds are listed in Article II, and the Governor’s defense addressed none of them. Ms. Glenna Palacios, the former policy advisor to the governor, attested to the purported multiple public purposes at multiple stops during one of the governor’s first-class trips in April of 2018. But had the House prosecutors been allowed, we would have asked Ms. Palacios specifically about the governor’s campaign rally in Oregon.
“The governor did not claim in his travel authorization that he was making an extra stop in Oregon in order to meet with CNMI constituents for the memorial service that Ms. Palacios described. What Governor Torres claimed in his TA instead was that he was going to meet with unnamed potential business partners in Oregon. What he actually did instead was attend a campaign rally.
“Governor Torres had the government pay for his campaign stop, in the form of his airfare, stipend, and lodging. And it was for that campaign stop, which Ms. Palacios did not mention, that the House charged Governor Torres with theft of public funds.
“The defense totally skipped over three other counts of theft in Article II. Had the House been allowed, we would have presented evidence that shows Governor Torres used public funds to pay for another campaign stop on Guam in June 2018. We would have also presented evidence that he claimed improper reimbursements for a trip to Rota for lodging expenses for himself despite having received per diem, lodging expenses for his spouse, who was not a government employee, and lodging expenses for a police officer, who testified that he received his own per diem and paid for his own hotel room. And we would have shown evidence that Governor Torres fraudulently claimed reimbursement for fuel for a police boat, when the Department of Public Safety has an open account at a different gas station and there was no reason for the governor to pay out of his own pocket for this expense.
“Speaking of boats. The governor’s defense counsel tried to play up the supposed billion-dollar exposure value of the governor’s promotional boating expedition to the Northern Islands with his family and friends in the summer of 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. That particular trip appears in Article V, Neglect of Duty, and it is presented in the context of the more than 120 trips by plane and 85 trips by boat taken by the Governor and his spouse, at public expense, totaling more than half a million dollars, during times of severe crisis and hardship for the people of the Commonwealth. The House prosecutors would have presented documentation for all those trips that coincided with natural disasters, fiscal austerity, furloughs, and a global pandemic.
“The number of views from Mr. Robert Arrington’s Deer Meat for Dinner videos is irrelevant. Article V is about the Governor’s negligence.
“Today you also heard the Governor’s defense team present their case on Article IV and Article VI.
“Article IV contains two counts of corruption for misuse of government resources, involving the governor’s unlawful and extravagant reimbursements totaling more than $78,000, and his use of police resources for personal fishing or recreational boating trips for himself and his family. Had the House been allowed, we would have presented the receipts, the reimbursement requests, the DPS vessel usage reports, the boating logs, and the witness testimonies.
“Article VI, Neglect of Duty, deals with contempt of the legislature. The record is extensive, documenting the events leading up to the House holding the governor in contempt for failing to comply with a legislative subpoena to testify under oath, the Speaker making the referral to the Attorney General, and ultimately the AG pressing charges.
“It’s all there in the House impeachment record that the Senate leadership has refused to see: Governor Torres’ pattern of misconduct, and the evidence justifying each and every article that would have been presented by the House prosecutors whom the Senate has refused to allow. There were many, many questions that should have been asked of the Governor’s witnesses, and more witnesses who should have been called. But the Senate leadership would not allow that, either.
“Fellow citizens of the Commonwealth: this mockery of a ‘trial’ will end soon enough. The verdict is already known. Truth and justice will not come from the Senate. But it may come through other means. Senator Paul Manglona and two other taxpayers have sued the Senate. The Attorney General has filed criminal charges against Governor Torres. Perhaps there is more to come. One thing is clear: our quest for justice and accountability will not end with the Senate.”
Rep. Tina Sablan speaks to the Senate at the conclusion of its impeachment hearing on Monday.
