The Argentine government has achieved this Monday in the courts to stop, at least for the moment, the dissemination of audios recorded in the Casa Rosada to the person of more power in the structure of ultra -right -wing management. A judge of first instance has warned that these recordings could affect its content, which has not had access, “the intimacy and honor” of the Secretary of the Presidency and “the institutional security” of the country. In a parallel judicial presentation, the government denounced that these audios, and other previous ones where a former senior official are part of an “illegal intelligence operation” aimed at “destabilizing” Argentine democracy. Behind the plot are, according to the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, journalists and “people linked to Russian intelligence services with an incidence of Venezuela.”
The judicial onslaught has been the first counterattack hint after almost two weeks in which Milei and its team the crisis began with the publication in a channel of streaming of conversations attributed to Diego Spagnuolo, personal friend of Milei and at that time director of the National Disability Agency (Andis). In the audios, the official complained that he could not disassemble a network of bribes mounted on his portfolio for state purchases of medicines. Spagnuolo told his confidant that the money raised was going to Karina Milei and his main advisor, Eduardo flower Menem. The government could barely react: it fired the official, and focused on the search for the author of the recordings.
Last Thursday, during a caravan prior to the elections that will be held this Sunday in the province of Buenos Aires, because he was a liar. But the reality was faster than the president: on Friday, the same program published by the audios of the head of Andis spread others where Karina Milei encouraged her interlocutors to be united. It was only a sample button, harmless in its content but evidence that the Secretary of the Presidency, the person who is the president’s mood and the main strategist of the government, had been recorded in his office.
In the circle of Mileista power they panicked. Karina Milei asked justice to stop the publication of future audios of which it is not even known if they exist. The federal judge who accepted his request, Alejandro Maraniello, clarified that his thing was not a case of prior censorship, although his ruling received varied criticisms. The lawyer Pedro Caminos, a member of the Civil Association of Constitutional Studies, warned that the judge did not have the audios at his disposal to evaluate eventual damage to the honor of the president’s sister. And he recalled that, according to Argentine legislation, “no authority has powers to prevent the dissemination of information.” “If that diffusion caused damage (as arbitrary interference in intimacy), responsibility is born. Always later, never before,” he wrote in a long post in X.
If the intention was to stop the scandal, the Argentines expect today more than yesterday to listen to those recordings that worry the government so much. And as collateral damage, any future diffusion already has an official seal of legitimacy. The local press also highlighted the profile of the judge responsible for the ban. The Council of the Magistracy, responsible for controlling the performance of the judges, accumulates eight complaints against Marianello, five of them for sexual harassment against their employees. In September of last year, the Judicial Power Association made a policeman within the Court of Marianello to “protect” the staff.
When the bewilderment spread, the Casa Rosada stirred the ghost of a large international espionage operation in which he put behind Russian and Venezuelan secret services. For the presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni, “Karina Milei and other officials were recorded, which were manipulated and disseminated to condition the Executive Power. It was not a filtration, it was an illegal, planned and directed attack.” Minister Bullrich said, to sustain the idea of a foreign operation, that “parallel intelligence services try to destabilize those governments that generate a shock in the world of power”, such as Milei, according to their reading.
🗣️ “We denounced people linked to Russian intelligence services. We knew that there could be Venezuela’s incidence”
– Radio Rivadavia (@Rivadavia630)
The local connection of that alleged operation would be the journalists who published the audios, to which the Government asked to pave their houses, and leaders linked to the Argentine Football Association – afraid of Milei -, and even the husband’s husband of a libertarian deputy who has just broken with the Casa Rosada.
The audios scandal arrives at a bad time for the government. To the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, it costs him more and more to maintain the exchange rate, which this Monday approached dangerously to 1,400 pesos per unit, the roof of the band that would force him, if he fulfills his promise before the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to sell reservations to keep the weight alive. Economic instability has still unpredictable consequences on the electoral scenario. On Sunday, local deputies and senators are chosen in the province of Buenos Aires, bastion of Peronism, and Milei has little to offer beyond a decrease in inflation that is in danger if the exchange rate finally triggers.
Spagnuolo audios and the fear that the president’s sister leakes ended up complicating everything. Sunday brought new bad news. In the province of Corrientes, where new governor was elected, Milei’s party, La Libertad advances, was fourth after refusing to negotiate an alliance with the party that finally took more than 50% of the votes.
