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AGO to subpoena senators over Brown confirmation?
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Posted on Jan 07 2005
The Attorney General’s Office intends to subpoena senators over the lack of a Senate record on attorney general Pamela Brown’s Senate confirmation in Nov. 2003.
Sources at the Senate said yesterday that AGO lawyers discussed the matter with Senate legal counsel Michael Ernest Thursday.
“The AGO is looking for the senators. It wants to subpoena them,” said the Senate source, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.
When asked on the issue, Senate president Joaquin G. Adriano said he has not received such a notice from the AGO.
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no problem with the [attorney general’s] confirmation. I don’t think subpoena is necessary,” said Adriano.
Sources said the AGO got irritated over reports that the journal on the Senate session held on Rota on Nov. 17, 2003 does not reflect that Brown was confirmed on that day.
The Senate leadership is awaiting the arrival of Senate legal counsel Antonio Cabrera, who attended the Rota session in 2003, to explain what had happened with the recording of the entire proceeding.
Cabrera, who remains off-island, reportedly made only handwritten notes about the Senate’s approval of Standing Committee Report 13-93, which recommended Brown’s confirmation.
This legislative action, however, was not recorded in the journal.
Authorities also said that the tape recording of the session made no mention of the confirmation.
But the Senate clerk has in its file a voting list showing the “yes” votes of the five majority senators during the session: Manglona, Adriano, Diego M. Songao, Paterno Hocog, and Joseph Mendiola.
Minority leader Sen. Pete P. Reyes, who, together with three other members—David Cing, Thomas Villagomez, and Ramon Guerrero—did not attend the Rota session amid a leadership struggle, said the lack of record in the journal made Brown’s confirmation highly questionable.
The Reyes’ bloc in 2003 had rejected Brown’s appointment to the post.
