MINORITY bloc Sen. Paul A. Manglona on Tuesday said he and taxpayer Carmen Patricia Deleon Guerrero, representing themselves as pro se litigants, had filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and further relief in Superior Court.
They want to court to prohibit the Senate leadership from proceeding with the governor’s motion to dismiss the articles of impeachment.
They are also asking the court to 1) compel the Senate leadership to provide the House of Representatives an extended deadline of May 19, 2022 in submitting the House impeachment record to the Senate; 2) to declare null and void the Senate impeachment rules; 3) to compel the Senate leadership to allow the House to designate five of its members as impeachment prosecutors; and 4) to command and compel attorneys Viola Alepuyo, Joe McDoulett “and all others to cease and desist from representing the governor, [Senate President] Hofschneider, and the Senate, respecting any and all aspects of the impeachment matter before the Legislature, as a consequence of documented, emailed, inappropriate ex parte and/or unethical communications by and between Alepuyo, Hofschneider, McDoulett, Governor Torres, and/or others in the collusive and impartial drafting of the Senate impeachment rules.”
“Basically, my motion is to bar this hearing today,” Manglona told his colleagues on Tuesday.
“Under the Constitution, the Senate is supposed to act as a jury. I don’t know how I can act as a juror if there is no prosecutor and we only have the person being accused. So, that’s why I wish that the House was here at least. If this is not a hearing and this is not formal, at least, for our benefit as public servants, we should have the House counsel come in here and defend themselves because these are all legal matters,” he said.
“For some reason, I almost think that this is an impeachment hearing of Rep. Tina Sablan because there are a lot of accusations against her and I wish we could just bring her in and [have her] answer those accusations — or her lawyer. These are all legal discussions and I am not a lawyer. None of us in this body are lawyers.”
Ample opportunity
Sen. Karl King-Nabors, a member of the Senate leadership, said, “I, too, would like to have the House here. We gave them ample opportunity….. Now, there was no communication, to my knowledge, from any of the House members or the House speaker with regards to issues with the rules. If they had any questions or concerns, they could have made them very clear and known so that they could get guidance so that the version [of the impeachment record] that they submitted wasn’t so horribly arranged.”
King-Nabors added, “So, I push back against this notion that we have somehow prohibited them from participating…. It was very simple… In the rules, it says that [the impeachment record] has to be consecutively paginated. How do you start on page 7,000? How are you missing 3,000-some other documents? There are transcriptions. None of them were provided. Some of the exhibits were stamped; some of them weren’t. Are we just supposed to go on good faith that this is the evidence that they are providing? Again, this was all part of what we were requesting, and it wasn’t outrageous. Nobody brought any issues up to include the minority members of the Senate, to include the majority in the House. Nobody had any concerns. So, if there were any questions or concerns regarding the evidence, the rules and records, they should have been made clear.”
‘It’s the House’s fault’
Another member of the Senate leadership, Sen. Francisco Q. Cruz, said, “The House was supposed to be here, but [they] declined to be present today. We’re following the due process of our rules. We’re not hiding anything here. We’re in order here…. They…declined to be here to present their case.”
Regarding Senator Manglona’s concerns, Cruz added, “It is [the House’s] fault why they are not here. I wish they were here so that we can hear from them, too, and [so that they can] present their case…. It’s in the rules. They have to present to the Senate their evidence; it has to be in order. We’re not the ones to arrange their evidence to be in order. It took them one year to investigate this case. The evidence could have been in order from the start. They know that they’re going to present it to the Senate to prosecute their case. There’s no reason why they’re not ready to present their case. I wish they were ready so that we can hear from them. But today, we have to proceed with the process [based on] our rules.”
“We’re not going to keep arguing back and forth as to why they are not here,” Cruz said. “It’s their fault why they don’t want to show up. We didn’t force them not to show up. We gave them the opportunity to come to the Senate and present their case.”
Attorney Aguon, in response to Manglona’s concerns, said the House “chooses not to let the rules apply to them when they do not want the rules to apply to them.”
“All of my arguments today are unopposed,” he said. “They’re undisputed because it’s the House that failed to follow the rules. We’re here today ready to argue, ready to represent Governor Torres, and it’s the House that failed — they failed to follow the rules and make these arguments, Senator Paul, that you’re asking for. They could have opposed any of my arguments.”
Sen. Paul A. Manglona reads a document while speaking during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
