Without Proof, President Temer Cannot be Removed, Declares New Minister

03/09/2017 - 10h59

The new Justice Minister, Osmar Serraglio (PMDB Party from PR), declared that President Michel Temer can only have his term revoked by the TSE (Federal Supreme Electoral Court) if there is objective proof that he knowingly received "inappropriate financial funds".

In an interview with the Folha, he said that he believes that Temer will finish out his term. "He may not have known. As I have said, he never talked about amounts of money." In a case before it, the TSE is investigating whether the Dilma-Temer ticket, in the 2014 campaign, was financed using illicit funds.

Regarding information that the President might have requested financial resources for the campaign from Marcelo Odebrecht, Serraglio declared that the political parties typically ask for donations from corporations.

"The money doesn't come stamped like 'look, this is corruption, don't touch this, it's corruption", he said.

Serraglio believes that illegality is generalized throughout Brazil, including the political parties and the population in general.

"If I can evade taxes, I evade. If I can avoid paying a fine, I don't pay it. This is our thinking. I don't know how we correct this. It a national moral issue", declared the new minister.

He argues, therefore, that there are different levels of corruption, which should be defined and measured by the damage that they cause to society.

Marcelo Odebrecht, former CEO of Brazilian construction company, admitted to Brazilian electoral authorities this week that he gave funds to Joao Santana, who managed the campaign for Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer in 2014.

Odebrecht, who is also involved in the Lava Jato case in Brazil, said that he used funds from his Brazilian construction company's petty cash box in 2014 to comply with an agreement he made with former Finance Minister Guido Mantega.

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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