"I am, we are transparency." - Lou Leon Guerrero
By Johnnie Rosario
(Tumon, Guam) Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, her son in law, and her director of communications sit on a throne of transparent lies.
Adelup is refusing to disclose emails between Haig Huynh and June Borja that deal with the use of Linda DeNorcey's digital signature on four letters dated March 18, 2020 dealing with the quarantine an isolation facilities.
The use of the signatures are at the heart of a forgery scandal inside a larger corruption scandal regarding the payment of millions of dollars to hotels with millions in outstanding mortgages to the Bank of Guam.
Mr. Huynh, who is Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero's legal counsel and son in law, lead the procurement of the hotels, according to documents and to Ms. Leon Guerrero herself. In a legislative oversight hearing on the procurement, Mr. Huynh instead told senators Guam Hotel and Restaurant Association president Mary Rhodes lead the procurement, while Adelup staff assistant Carlo T. Branch said Ms. Leon Guerrero was the procuring authority.
Ms. Borja is the staffer in Huynh's office, who sent an April 1, 2020 email to co-worker Laurie Tumaneng, asking Ms. Tumaneng to append Ms. DeNorcey's digital signature to four letters originally signed by Ms. Leon Guerrero and dated March 18. The four letters designate the Santa Fe, Wyndham Gardens, Days Inn, and Pacific Star hotels as the government's quarantine and isolation facilities for travelers.
"Per Sophia's instructions, kindly requesting if you can insert Linda DeNorcey's digital signature on the attached four (4) letters please, and send back to me to send out?" Ms. Borja stated in her 5:07 p.m. April 1 email to Ms. Tumaneng. She continued, "We have obtained Ms. DeNorcey's approval to use her digital signature on the attached letters."
Twenty three minutes later, Ms. Tumaneng replied with the four abridged letters now bearing Ms. DeNorcey's signature.
Ms. DeNorcey said she approved no such use of her signature for these letters, and that she had not seen those letters prior to the media confronting her with them.
Mr. Huynh, assistant legal counsel Sophia Diaz, and Ms. Tumaneng all participated in the legislative oversight hearing on the matter, but Ms. Borja did not, even though it is her testimony about who told her to use Ms. DeNorcey's signature that matters most to the forgery inquiry.
While Ms. Tumaneng testified that it was her understanding that Mr. Huynh told the staffers to use the signature, it was Ms. Borja who stated in the email, "We have obtained Ms. DeNorcey's approval to use her digital signature on the attached letters."
Kandit attempted to find out whether there is email correspondence from Mr. Huynh to Ms. Borja during that time period telling Ms. Borja to tell Ms. Tumaneng that Ms. DeNorcey had approved the use of the signatures. In a Freedom of Information Act request for the email documents, we asked for the emails between the two.
"Any documents you seek are exempt from disclosure as attorney work product and the deliberative process doctrine, pursuant to 5 GCA 10108(i)," according to a letter signed by governor's director of communications Janela Carrera denying the disclosure of "Any and all email correspondence from February 1, 2020 to [May 18, 2020] between June Borja and Haig Huynh discussing or involving the digital signature of Linda DeNorcey."
While Adelup is invoking exemptions to the FOIA disclosure requirements on documents between Haig Huynh and June Borja, Adelup is not treating documents between Huynh and Ms. Tumaneng the same way. Ms. Carrera did disclose those emails, which show Mr. Huynh telling Ms. Tumaneng - after the forgery scandal broke the news - to discard Ms. DeNorcey's signature.
