Temer, the mobster

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's Attorney General, Rodrigo Janot, filed charges this Thursday with the Supreme Federal Court (STF) against President Michel Temer for the crimes of criminal organization and obstruction of investigations, accusing him of leading a scheme involving the embezzlement of funds, bribery, and other offenses from 2006 to the present day.

Janot denounced Temer as the head of the scheme involving the so-called PMDB group in the Chamber of Deputies. He also criminally charged, for criminal organization, the two main ministers in the presidential palace, Eliseu Padilha (Chief of Staff) and Moreira Franco (Secretary-General of the Presidency), as well as former presidents of the Chamber of Deputies Eduardo Cunha and Henrique Eduardo Alves, former minister Geddel Vieira Lima, and former advisor Rodrigo Rocha Loures.

The prosecution alleges that the group acted to collect bribes through various public bodies, such as Petrobras, Furnas, Caixa Econômica Federal, the Ministries of Agriculture and National Integration, the Civil Aviation Secretariat, and the Chamber of Deputies.

"From mid-2006 to the present day, Michel Temer, Eduardo Cunha, Henrique Alves, Geddel Vieira Lima, Rodrigo Loures, Eliseu Padilha, and Moreira Franco, as members of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), freely and consciously, in a stable, professional, pre-arranged manner, with a defined structure and division of tasks, joined the political core of a criminal organization to commit a myriad of crimes, especially against the Public Administration, including the Chamber of Deputies," the indictment states.

In a statement, the Attorney General's Office said that "Michel Temer is accused of having acted as the leader of the criminal organization since May 2016." This is Janot's last major accusation as head of the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office. His term ends on Sunday.

According to calculations presented in the indictment, the group of defendants received bribes totaling 587 million reais. The Federal Audit Court (TCU) estimated that the losses to Petrobras alone reached 29 billion reais.

In the indictment, Janot requests that the defendants be ordered to pay this same amount -- approximately 587 million reais -- in compensation for material damages, as well as compensation for moral damages in the amount of 55 million reais.

The Attorney General also indicted J&F executives Joesley Batista and Ricardo Saud for obstruction of justice for allegedly acting, along with Temer, to pay bribes to Eduardo Cunha and businessman Lúcio Funaro to prevent them from entering into plea bargain agreements. Funaro confirmed this accusation in a collaboration agreement recently approved by the Supreme Court—the indictment is reinforced by the testimonies given by him and others involved.

Joesley and Saud were recently arrested and had their immunity from prosecution suspended after investigations revealed that they omitted information from the plea bargain they signed.

Janot requested on Thursday the termination of the agreement between the two due to breach of clauses, but the evidence presented by them remains valid. Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin gave the collaborators ten days to respond before deciding on the termination.

In the 245-page indictment, Janot states that Temer—then president of the PMDB—was the "great strategist" for unifying the party's support in the distribution of government positions, even during Lula's administration. He was the one who, for example, worked to resolve any obstructions in congressional votes led by Eduardo Cunha. The Attorney General said that Temer and Cunha shared bribes.

According to the prosecution, the group's relationship with the Workers' Party government was shaken during the administration of former President Dilma Rousseff with the dismissal of Moreira Franco from the government. From then on, there was an effort to overthrow Dilma and install Temer, the vice-president, as president, in a rearrangement of political forces, maintaining the criminal scheme.

For the case to go to trial, the Supreme Court must forward the complaint to the Chamber of Deputies, which then decides whether or not to authorize the court to analyze the accusation made by Janot.

The day before, the Supreme Court postponed until next Wednesday a decision on whether the processing of a potential indictment by Janot would be suspended until the conclusion of investigations into suspected omission of information in the plea bargain agreement by J&F executives. Temer's defense team filed a petition with the Supreme Court tonight requesting that the indictment not be sent to the Chamber of Deputies before Wednesday.

Without referencing the defense's request, Fachin released a statement informing that he will not immediately forward the complaint to the Chamber, in order to await Wednesday's hearing.

Last month, the Chamber of Deputies rejected authorizing the Supreme Court to try corruption charges against Temer. The accusation stemmed from the plea bargain testimony of executives from J&F, the holding company that controls JBS.

"IRRESPONSIBLE MARCH"

Temer described Janot's presentation of the second indictment as an "irresponsible move" and said that the Attorney General is jeopardizing the plea bargain system.

In a statement released by the Presidency of the Republic, Temer accused Janot of "failing to fulfill minimum obligations of care and diligence in his work, due to incompetence or negligence."

"By accepting false and fabricated testimonies, it instituted fraudulent plea bargaining. In this system, crime pays. Deceptions, tricks, and scams have become the norm for stealing the country's institutional tranquility," the text said.

In a statement, Moreira Franco reiterated that he never participated "in any group for the practice of illegal activity."

"This accusation was fabricated with the help of lying informants who negotiate benefits and privileges. I will respond definitively when I have knowledge of the process," says Moreira Franco. 

Padilha's press office echoed this sentiment, stating, also in a note, that the accusation "is based on informants who, without any commitment to the truth, told stories that could give them personal advantages before the Public Prosecutor's Office."

Thus, the statement continues, the lack of evidence will lead the Judiciary to reject the charges and decide in favor of the Chief of Staff's innocence.

Geddel's defense team—who is imprisoned in the Papuda penitentiary in Brasília—categorically rejected "the accusations presented in the indictment, which are undeniably weak in terms of narrative and evidence, reserving the right to refute them in court, when the opportunity for rebuttal is granted."

The PMDB party lamented "yet another irresponsible act committed by the Attorney General of the Republic."

"The entire society has been following the decidedly un-republican acts of fabricating these plea bargains. The justice system and society will be able to identify the prosecutor's true motivations," the PMDB said in a statement.