San Juan, Puerto Rico (AP) – Three members of a Federal Control Committee that monitors the finances of Puerto Rico, which was recently released by the administration of US President Donald Trump, submitted a complaint before the Federal Court on Thursday that her burnings were illegal.
The lawsuit was filed against Trump; Sergio Gor, director of the Personnel Office of the White House; John E. Nixon, the sole board member; and Robert F. Mujica, the executive director of the board.
Lawyers said that Arthur J. Gonzalez, Andrew G. Biggs and Betty A. Rosa were illegally removed from the board and asked for a judge to exploit them again.
“This is a case about the power over the board and about Puerto Rico,” said Eduardo Santacana, a lawyer of Cooley LLP, a law firm that helps in the case. (*3*)
Released by e -mail
Last month, the lawsuit revealed further details about the abrupt layoffs, including the deputy director of the US personnel office, Gonzalez and Rosa on August 1st sent an email with two Sentenz, and gave it to them. Gonzalez was the chairman of the board at the time.
Biggs received the same message almost two weeks later.
“Neither e -mail articulated a” cause “nor any other justification for the distances,” the lawsuit said. “These alleged distances were illegal.”
Lawyers argue that Trump has no inherent authority to terminate gonzalez, biggs or pink because they are not the United States officers within the executive.
In the lawsuit it was found that the congress, when he approved a law in 2016, created the Financial Oversight and Management Board in the territorial government of Puerto Rico.
“The operations of this case could not be higher: if the president can violate the laws that the congress passed, the local governments in the territories, he could remove any territorial official tomorrow. In this theory, he can also be able to remove officers from the District of Columbia,” says the lawsuit.
It was also found that a board member is removed “for reasons”, the right to the announcement and a hearing that neither gonzalez, biggs nor pink.
A debt -resistant struggle
A total of six board members were released by the Trump government, including Cameron McKenzie, Juan Sabater and Luis Ubiñas. They were not named in the lawsuit on Thursday.
Four of the six dismissed members are Democrats, while Nixon, who stays on the board, is a Republican.
Gonzalez is a retired insolvency judge; Rosa is the commissioner of the New York State Education Department and President of the University of the State of New York. and Biggs an expert in social security reform.
The board supervised a bankruptcy process after Puerto Rico announced in 2015 not to pay its debt load of more than $ 70 billion, and then applied for the greatest municipal bankruptcy in US history in 2017.
Until recently, the board had difficulties to achieve a debt agreement with the bond loan over the debts of more than $ 9 billion by Puerto Rico’s electric power authority.
The board had insisted on a payment of 2.6 billion US dollars before the rejections of its six members.
The distances triggered the concern because experts believe that Trump will appoint modern members who prefer to pay the total of 8.5 billion US dollars, which are demanding bond believers.
The board is said to have seven members, six of whom can be appointed by the US President with advice and approval from the Senate. They serve for three years and can only be removed for reasons.
