{"id":367222,"date":"2022-04-28T06:01:02","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T20:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=367222"},"modified":"2022-04-28T06:01:02","modified_gmt":"2022-04-27T20:01:02","slug":"torres-the-house-never-invited-me-to-testify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/torres-the-house-never-invited-me-to-testify\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor says the House never invited him to testify"},"content":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres sign the proclamation that designates May 2-6, 2022 as Public Service Recognition Week. (Office of the Governor)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres claims that the House of Representatives never once invited him in his personal capacity to testify against the allegations against him. <\/p>\n

In a brief statement from Torres last Tuesday, he said he wants to clarify for the community that if the House of Representatives had invited him in his personal capacity to answer questions\u2014and not as governor\u2014then he would\u2019ve gladly done so. However, that was not the case and now, the situation has gotten to the point of impeachment and even criminal charges. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey never once invited me to come. I\u2019ve said it numerous times: \u2018Invite me to come, and I\u2019ll come, and I\u2019ll testify. You want me to be under oath, I\u2019ll do it.\u2019 But obviously they chose to do it their own way. Now it is what it is. But I just wanted people in the community to know that I\u2019ve always said that I\u2019m willing to come in and testify and have a discussion and answer your questions,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Torres explained that had the House of Representatives, specifically the House\u2019s Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee, invited him instead of issuing a subpoena for the governor, he would have gladly came in and answered any, if not all, their questions. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust to make it clear: I\u2019ve said it in the past and I\u2019ll say it again\u2014if the House were to invite me to come, I would have gladly come and done that. I\u2019ve said it numerous times. To subpoena the governor, you\u2019re not putting\u2026the position of governor [in a spot] where at any time the Legislature can just come arbitrarily and just subpoena the governor and the Senate as well. I stand by that. This was something that I could\u2019ve easily gone in, take the oath, and answer their questions. But they chose not to, they chose the other way, which was to subpoena the governor,\u201d Torres said. <\/p>\n

However, Torres remains optimistic and says he will continue to represent those who believe in his leadership and those who voted him into his position. <\/p>\n

As for the impeachment trial on May 13, Torres said he will gladly be there if his legal counsel advises him to. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll leave it to my legal counsel. If my legal counsel suggests that I should be present then I will be,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres claims that the House of Representatives never once invited him in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":367224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-367222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}