Pedro Sánchez currently maintains his confidence in both the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and the director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, despite the enormous political pressure on them, with the PP calling for his resignation, an alleged spy in the pay of the PSOE. The UCO maintains that after these appointments there were movements to hinder the investigations that affected the president’s family, and it does so based on Leire’s own communications.
González, however, denies this version of Leire Díez and the UCO and through a statement made public by the Interior maintains that in those appointments – he only remembers two, although he admits that there could have been three – there was no talk of doing anything against the UCO or his work in the Civil Guard but in the last one there was a moment in which Díez entered fully into the matter and asked the director to recover a commander, Rubén Villalba, who was suspended from employment and salary for his involvement in the Koldo case. There, according to the statement, the director “outright rejected” this idea and ended the meeting. “After this meeting they will not hold another meeting,” the text says. “The director affirms that she has never participated in any operation against any unit of the Civil Guard,” the text states. This last appointment was in April 2025.
Executive sources at the highest level indicate that Sánchez maintains political support because he believes González and is convinced that neither she nor Marlaska did absolutely anything against the UCO or to harm these investigations. In fact, when the Leire case broke, a year ago, both met with the leadership of the elite investigation group of the Civil Guard and expressed all their support.
These Government sources point out that the director of the Civil Guard, who has not yet offered any type of public explanation – Marlaska did make brief statements in Luxembourg defending the director and denying any irregularity – only remembers two meetings, not three, and in any case points out that they were held outside the official office and did not have any content against the Civil Guard.
In the first, they explain, González, who had a relationship with Díez through WhatsApp from when the alleged spy worked at Correos and the director was a Government delegate in Madrid, responded to the request for a brief meeting in which according to these sources there was not much political content, it was more of a personal meeting to generate a bond since Díez at that time was without a permanent job and both talked about that work situation without delving into anything more relevant.
In the second, already in April 2025 – the UCO assures that there was a third in December 2024 that the Government has not confirmed, although it points out that if it occurred it would be in the same irrelevant terms as the first -, Díez was already fully involved in the operation, in the pay of the PSOE, to try to find negative information about the investigators of the cases that affected the president’s family. And there the conversation did turn to what government sources define as the “conspiracy theory” that Díez explained in which he implicated the UCO as part of a campaign against the president. And there, always according to this official version of the Executive, came the request to return Commander Villalba to his job and the meeting ended abruptly with a blunt rejection and then reduced the relationship with Díez to a minimum, who continued to send him messages critical of the UCO.
In any case, the official version is already changing, because the minister himself had denied on May 28 that there had been any meeting between the director and Leire Díez. “The director of the Civil Guard has not had any meeting with any person, the one you have indicated, Leire or any other, in terms of any kind,” he said.
The political situation is very delicate and also falls on a ministry, the Interior, which is coming from one fire after another, although Sánchez has always maintained confidence in Marlaska during his eight years in government – he is one of the few who has been there from the beginning.
There are not only the director’s meetings with Leire. It has also been learned from the summary that there are two generals who accuse the previous director, Leonardo Marcos, of ordering the brother of the President of the Government to conclude “that there was nothing”; One of those senior officers also assured that the deputy operational director (DAO) of the armed institute, Lieutenant General Manuel Llamas, urged him to “put a profile” and not be “proactive” in cases “that had political implications.”
In this context, Grande-Marlaska maintained a close defense of the director of the Civil Guard, whom the president also continues to support, according to La Moncloa sources. “I am convinced of his exemplary performance and complete honesty,” said Grande-Marlaska upon his arrival in Luxembourg for a meeting with EU Interior Ministers. “I have not known of any action aimed at undermining the work of the State security bodies and forces, and in this case of the Civil Guard. I would not have tolerated it,” he noted.
The Government has therefore stopped denying the meetings, but it does flatly reject the UCO’s hypothesis that they were meetings to make decisions against the investigators. In fact, the report indicates that after these appointments, internal investigations were opened due to the leaks of some issues under summary secrecy. Díez insists to his interlocutors that the director of the Civil Guard is someone he “trusts,” but these Government sources insist that the relationship was never close and as soon as he wanted to take it to the realm of conspiracy it was cut off.
Marlaska claimed that the UCO, under his mandate, has always acted with total freedom. “I immediately met with the heads of the UCO to express my direct and real support as Minister of the Interior. I stated that the only thing I ask for, supporting their work, is neutrality and professionalism,” explained the head of the Interior. At that meeting, González was present, who, in turn, had had a meeting on the same terms with the leadership of the Civil Guard body dedicated to the investigation of economic crimes and corruption: “I know. […] It cannot be otherwise, given the situation that had been created and the knowledge of public opinion.”
These meetings would have taken place in May of last year, according to the Interior. It was then that some audios of Leire Diez that are part of the investigation became known, in which he criticized the person who was then in charge of the UCO, Antonio Balas.
The Minister of the Interior has even contrasted his actions with that of “other historical moments in this country.” “The Civil Guard and Police work with absolute independence under the direct orders of the judges and prosecutors, as it should be and supported in all that corresponds by their organic bosses. And I say again [que no tengo] “no knowledge of any interference, which I would not have tolerated.”
Marlaska, like Sánchez, maintains support for the director of the Civil Guard: “I am absolutely aware of what the loyalty to the legality of the director of the Civil Guard is. And the respect and support for the work of the Civil Guard.”
