The first meeting of the Special Investigating Committee set up to look into the fabrication and dissemination of a forged document that would have influenced the decisions of the 37th Guam Legislature was held on May 8 at the Guam Congress Building in Hagatna.
The document was a fraudulent amendment to Bill 32-37 that intended to cut funding to school teacher raises.
The Committee was established as mandated by Resolution 67-37 following the dissemination through social media of what seemed to be an official Legislative document proffered by Republican Sen. Chris Duenas.
Members of the Investigative Committee are Sens. Chris Barnett, Frank Blas Jr., Thomas Fisher, Dwayne San Nicolas and Sabina Perez.
Barnett, the Committee Chairperson, said that the meeting only focused on the rules of engagement and logistics, adding that there’s another meeting set up for May 15.
“We didn’t discuss anything substantive, relative to the investigation, and that’s kind of where we’re at. We’re really just at the beginning,” said Barnett.
He estimated that the fabricator had the template used by the Legislature to create amendments as the document, however forged, seemed genuine.
Barnett said the Committee’s end goal is to reach a determination on where the fraudulent amendment came from.
“Who circulated it? And really I think after we hopefully make those determinations, kind of look into our system and looking at ways we can improve our best practices to prevent this sort of thing from happening again,” he told the Pacific News Center.
Ultimately, the Chairman requested for this administrative process to be respected, assuring that the Legislature is going to get to “the bottom of it” one way or another.
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