Brazil prez charged with bribery; calls it 'soap opera plot'
28 Jun 2017 11:15 PM IST
Ever since an audio recording emerged in May of Brazil's president, Michel Temer, seeming to discuss paying hush money and backhanders, the country's zealous prosecutors have been expected to pounce. Even so, the decision by Rodrigo Janot, the chief prosecutor, on June 26th to charge Temer with bribe-taking was momentous. It is the first such charge against a sitting president.
Janot bases his accusations on the tape and testimony of Joesley Batista, the billionaire businessman who secretly recorded it. These resulted in a sting operation in which Rodrigo Loures, a former aide to Temer, was filmed receiving $159,000 from Batista's envoy, allegedly for interceding with the antitrust agency on his firm's behalf. Janot suspects that the cash, plus another 38m reais promised by Batista, was in fact meant for Temer. The president protests his innocence and points out that his relationship with Loures is all that links him to the payoff. But Temer dismissed corruption allegations against him as a "soap opera plot" and cast doubt on the motivations of the country's top prosecutor a day after he presented a scathing indictment.
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