{"id":367898,"date":"2022-05-06T06:05:31","date_gmt":"2022-05-05T20:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=367898"},"modified":"2022-05-06T06:05:31","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T20:05:31","slug":"torres-optimistic-hed-be-acquitted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/torres-optimistic-hed-be-acquitted\/","title":{"rendered":"Torres optimistic he\u2019d be acquitted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres is optimistic that the Senate will acquit him following the impeachment trial that is set to begin on May 13. <\/p>\n

In a brief statement from Torres, he said he looks forward to the Senate\u2019s acquittance. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very confident in my counsel. I think he did a great job so I look forward to being acquitted by the Senate. Again, I have every confidence in my counsel\u2019s performance,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"\"
Torres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Representing Torres at the hearing will be attorney Anthony Aguon, who also represented him during the hearing on Torres\u2019 motion to dismiss the Article of Impeachment filed against him by the House of Representatives. <\/p>\n

As for whether he would be attending the trial, Torres said he awaits the advice of his counsel. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll wait for the advisement of my counsel. Meanwhile, we continue to move forward and we continue to prioritize the issues that we are facing here in the CNMI. We\u2019ve done a lot of proclamations, Route 36 continues to move forward, we\u2019re looking at signing the road project for Beach Road. My work will continue for the betterment of the community,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The trial was set for May 13 following a 4-3 Senate vote in favor of dismissing the Article of Impeachment against Torres. <\/p>\n

All Republican senators\u2014Senate President Jude Hofschneider (R-Tinian), Sens. Victor Hocog (R-Rota), Karl King-Nabors (R-Tinian), and Francisco Cruz (R-Tinian)\u2014voted in favor of granting the motion to dismiss; Sens. Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota), Teresita Santos (Ind-Rota), and Edith DeLeon Guerrero (D-Saipan) voted in opposition.<\/p>\n

Only seven members were present for the voting as Sens. Vinnie Sablan (R-Saipan) and Justo Quitugua (R-Saipan) were officially recused from the entire impeachment proceedings.<\/p>\n

Because the Senate rule of impeachment required five votes to dismiss the Article of Impeachment, the motion to dismiss was denied and Hofschneider moved forward with the impeachment trial. <\/p>\n

Hofschneider said the impeachment hearing will continue day-to-day until its conclusion.<\/p>\n

All legislative and other business of the Senate will be suspended until the conclusion of the impeachment trial. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres is optimistic that the Senate will acquit him following the impeachment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":365080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367898","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=367898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}