The president of , (-AP), defended this Tuesday (30) the senator (-BA), criticized the “criminalization of politics” and stated that the House’s lawyers will ask the (Federal Supreme Court) to join the PT member.
“The Federal Senate’s lawyers are preparing all the legal documents so that the Senate of the Republic institution can join as a party to this action, asking the Brazilian Judiciary so that it can reestablish the good and effective exercise of the mandate of his excellency, Senator of the Republic Jaques Wagner”, said Alcolumbre.
Wagner from the PF (), with authorization from the STF, on suspicion of having received benefits from the then owners of , such as tickets to shows, use of aircraft and an apartment worth R$2.5 million. He was in the Senate on Wednesday (24) after meeting with President Lula (PT).
The senator claims to be innocent and highlighted in a statement that he is not a defendant, was not denounced and was not accused in any process related to the facts investigated. He filed a request with the STF for his properties, saying that he did not act in favor of Banco Master in Congress.
The decision by Minister André Mendonça, of the STF, who authorized the PF’s operation on the 19th, did not block the use of compensation funds, but Alcolumbre stated on the stand that the Senate’s institutional legal team will come in as a party to defend the senator’s prerogatives in this regard. “Some decisions that were taken by the Judiciary are reducing the condition of the mandate,” he said.
Alcolumbre cited the need to reestablish Wagner’s prerogatives, such as the use of compensation funds to pay the rent for the property where the senator’s office is located, car rental, payment for correspondence and cell phone bills.
These restrictions are not in Mendonça’s decision, which was made public on the day of the operation. One of the points was the seizure of notes totaling (around R$471 thousand, in current values) at addresses linked to Wagner. The senator claimed that the ballots refer to unused daily allowances on international missions.
A Sheet He sought Alcolumbre’s advice at 5:54 pm this Tuesday to understand what restriction occurred in the compensation funds, but received no response until the publication of this report.
Wagner did not clarify whether there was a new decision under secrecy or the reasons for the Senate’s legal team to act in its defense. Through his consultancy, he simply stated that “he has already provided all the necessary clarifications” and that “the merits of the procedure are being discussed in the records”.
Alcolumbre told the plenary that he spoke to Wagner on Friday (26), with whom he had been broken up for months, to comment on the operation. The PT member was not in the plenary at the time, and the speech took place after the president of the Senate congratulated Teresa Leitão (PT-PE) for assuming leadership of the government.
Alcolumbre said that the PT member and the other senators “can fully count on my presence, my demonstration, my defense and my support” to defend them.
According to him, Wagner’s “parliamentary performance was destabilized” by the operation and the presumption of innocence must be guaranteed.
“The public figure, the citizen, the parliamentarian, when he suffers an operation like that, which so many of our colleagues suffered, is already condemned from the point of view of public opinion. That’s not right,” said Alcolumbre. “The criminalization of Brazilian politics is not correct. I don’t know who is interested in criminalizing Brazilian politics. It’s not democracy and not Brazil, that’s for sure,” he continued.
