Ricardo Rosselló Nevares resigned from his duties as Governor tonight, efective Friday, August 2nd, after facing weeks of mass protests against him, becoming the first governor of Puerto Rico to leave office before the end of his term.

The 40-year-old scientist and married father of a boy and a girl spent two years and six months as the 12th Governor elected by the people of Puerto Rico in the Commonwealth's 67 years of self-governance. His father is former Governor Pedro Rosselló González, making him also the first son of a former governor to be elected to Executive Office. The island has been a territory of the United States since 1898.

With his resignation, he seeks to avoid an impeachment process for which pro-independence legislator Denis Márquez had already filed a resolution in the House of Representatives. Instead of working with that resolution, House Speaker Carlos 'Johnny' Mendez Núñez, came up with a panel of three law experts who would analyze whether there's basis for impeachment in the content of the leaked Telegram chat that the Governor initiated as administrator and in which his closest advisors conducted public business, shared confidential government information with a lobbyist, schemed to attack political opponents, and insulted obese persons as well as personalities like singer Ricky Martin. The experts' opinion, handed down today, was that the chat's participants committed at least five felonies. That, and the fact that the Governor did not meet a 5:00 pm deadline to make public his decision, caused the House to call for a special session on Thursday, July 25th, to begin the impeachment process.

The chain of events that hit the Rosselló Nevares Administration were unleashed on July 9 when NotiCel began to reveal the content of the chat, then on July 10 federal agents arrested two former officials and others close to the administration, on July 11 independent journalist Sandra Rodríguez Cotto disclosed other excerpts from the chat in which the participants make homophobic and misogynistic expressions, and on July 13, the Center for Investigative Journalism published 889 pages of the chat. Since then, there's been daily protests all over the island and in front of La Fortaleza, the governor's mansion, in Old San Juan.

As a result, Rosselló Nevares started facing demands for his resignation from members of Congress, the private sector, artists and others as well as important mayors and legislators of his New Progressive Party (NPP) who started withdrawing their support. On Wednesday, July 17, some 300,000 people gathered in Old San Juan convened through social media by unions and artists such as Bad Bunny, Rene 'Residente' Perez, Martin and social media motorcycle personality Rey Charlie, who commanded a 3,000 strong motorcycle caravan through the highways of San Juan. During the event, there was no prominent participation from opposing political parties.

La Fortaleza's reaction, in the middle of the demonstration, was that one of the constitutional causes for impeachment is not 'that there is a protest of a particular number (of participants).' Activism remained strong and creative in Puerto Rico and worldwide leading on July 22 to what is probably the biggest march in the history of Puerto Rico, with a scientifically estimated crowd of some 500,000 people coming together to occupy the Las Americas Expressway, the most important in the island's capital. The event was similarly put together in under three days through social media.

The domino effect continued when Rosselló Nevares had a disastrous showing in an interview for Fox News, and then, in a matter of hours, his father disaffiliated himself from the NPP, Republican pro-statehood activist Zoraida Fonalledas, requested his resignation, her company, Empresas Fonalledas (operator of Plaza la Americas) joined her call, Chief of Staff Ricardo Llerandi submitted his resignation, interim director of the Puerto Rico Federals Affairs Administration George Laws resigned, Arecibo and Guaynabo mayors asked for his resignation, the Fiscal Oversight and Management Control Board (FOMB) urged 'haste' in solving the crisis, and then singer Perez called for another massive march to be held on Thursday, July 25, at the banking district.

Meanwhile, the Commonwealth's Department of Justice submitted an affidavit on Monday that claimed that their investigators had serious suspicion that Government Ethics Law violations were committed by the chat's participants. Commonwealth agents started serving warrants on the participants' phones but the Governor had stated at least twice that he erased the chat, thereby raising the specter of obstruction of justice.

Last week, Yosem E. Companys, the Governor's former mentor and business partner came forth to state that, around 2004, when they were creating a technology startup, Rosselló Nevares told him that seed money for the company would come from a bank account where he had $1 million stashed and that was sourced by contracts for which he had to do nothing except to provide access to his father, who was then a sitting Senator.

Also this week, executives from the state-run Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority appeared before a federal Grand Jury investigating contract-steering in Hurricane María's aftermath.

Rosselló Nevares reached the country's highest public office after prevailing in the 2016 elections with 660,510 votes, or 41.80%, one of the lowest showings for a Governor. The elections were also historical because for the first time two independent candidates for Governor participated, being able to capture 16.8% of the votes between the two of them. The closest rival to Rosselló Nevares was Popular Democratic Party (PPD) candidate, David Bernier, who got 38.87% of the vote.

Since 2016, Puerto Ricans have suffered a dizzying chain of historical events. In May 2016, the Government of Puerto Rico declared a non-payment of public debt principal for the first time, in November 2016 they had their first general elections for Governor with independent candidates, in May 2017 the government declared bankruptcy under structures of the newly created PROMESA federal law, in September 2017 the island was ravaged by Hurricane Maria, the most powerful in almost 100 years, and today the first resignation of an elected governor.

Rosselló Nevares was sworned in just after midnight January 2, 2017 and in his inaugural speech he declared he would be 'the last governor of the colony.'

'Thanks also to my running mate, Jenniffer González Colón, who will undoubtedly be the first woman to be a resident commissioner and the last one, because we are going to bring statehood,' Rosselló Nevares said before being elected.

Precisely, González Colón was among the first to withdraw her support for Rosselló Nevares after the public corruption indictment and TelegramGate leak, also known by 'Ricky Leaks'.

The scandal can be traced back to several points during the Administration but a very certain one was January 27, 2019, when former Treasury Secretary Teresita Fuentes resigned. In her letter to the Governor, she said she left because of 'frustrations' over handling of public policy by the Governor and his staff. In her resignation letter, Fuentes said: 'I understand that the position of Secretary of the Treasury must be held by a public servant aligned with your public policy ideals.'

Click here for Fuentes' letter.

That exit led to Raúl Maldonado Gautier consolidating power within the Administration by becoming Treasury Secretary, Chief Financial Officer and Management and Budget Office director at the same time.

NotiCel then revealed that Maldonado Gautier's son, Raúl Maldonado Nieves, was hired by at least seven government agencies, a municipality and the Senate by subcontracts with five companies. NotiCel also found that Maldonado Gautier himself signed several of the contracts with companies that in turn outsourced his son, including Virtus Consulting.

Official inquiries into these matters began and months later the now former official went to radio station WKAQ to defend himself and claim that there was an 'institutional mafia' in Treasury working against him. The 'mafia' allegations caused Rosselló Nevares to hold a press conference in which he immediately removed Maldonado Gautier from all his positions.

His father's firing fired up Maldonado Nieves, who used his Facebook account to issue several messages in which he called the Governor 'corrupt' and also said he manipulated for political gain the delivery of aid and supplies after Hurricane Maria. He said that Rosselló Nevares had instructed accounting firm BDO Puerto Rico to alter an audit about aid delivery to protect the First lady's involvement in the matter. 'If you don't believe me... polygraph!,' he said defiantly several times.

To read the 889 pages of the Telegram chat, click here.