Hacks vs. Flacks: Gushiken Goes for the Jugular

Lula’s former flack in chief: I am sick of those Karate Kid jokes!

Fazendo Media: a média que a mídia faz today notes a development in one of the principle “dominos” in that banned campaign ad from the last election season, the one that suggested that the Lula government was massively corrupt.

It was banned by the federal election courts because none of the corruption charges have yet to be substantiated.

Except maybe for Delúbio Soares, who was allegedly mixed up with the Belo Horizonte money laundering mafia run by ad man Marco Valério “Baldy” Sousa.

No wait, last I heard, his day in court was postponed by a heart surgery he underwent.

The former president of the PSDB has been indicted for having originated the so-called Valerioduto, in which the Minas senator, governor and gubernatorial candidate and national PSDB president allegedly laundered money through state-owned firms and publicity contracts for state-funded cultural events into campaign slush funds.

Zé Dirceu, Antonio Palocci — the former mayor of Belo Horizonte — and other prominent government petistas have yet to have their day in court, while the cases against other dominos in that ad never proceeded.

And the “dossier” scandal, as we have already noted, resulted in no criminal charges after an intensive investigation.

You can think of Gushiken as having been sort of a cabinet-level Ari Fleischer, I guess, with control of the government advertising and PR budget.

You can see the astroturf video I am referring to, from the 2006 Alckmin campaign,in this NMM-TV Zeitgeist Newsreel, with my sucky subtitles.

One of the “journalists” in question, Diogo Mainardi of Veja magazine, recently lost a libel suit brought by Mino Carta of CartaCapital — the foreign correspondents association’s journalist of the year for 2006.

The suit dealt with an article on his “blog” in which he accused the scrappy muckraking business weekly of receiving bribes from the government for pro-government coverage in the form of advertising buys.

A carta abaixo foi enviada pelo ex-ministro Luiz Gushiken à Polícia Federal e tem o objetivo de cobrar investigações sobre os jornalistas Diogo Mainardi, Lauro Jardim e Leonardo Attuch, além do banqueiro Daniel Dantas. Para Gushiken, os quatro podem estar difamando sua imagem porque tiveram os interesses contrariados enquanto foi ministro.

The letter reproduced below was sent by former Minister [of Institutional Communications] Luis Gushiken to the Federal Police and demands an investigation into journalists Diogo Mainardi, Lauro Jardim and Leonardo Attuch, as well as banker Daniel Dantas. According to Gushiken, the four men have been slandering him because he acted against their interests when he was minister.

O documento foi divulgado pela página Conversa Afiada. Segue a íntegra abaixo:

The document was published on the Web site [of Paulo Amorim, a CartaCapital founding and contributing editor]. The entire text:

The bald bad-boy of Belo Horizonte. The hand gesture pictured in this Wikipedia portrait, in Brazil, by the way, means “shove it up your ass” rather than “okay.” A little Brazilian Wikihumor by the poster.

To the Director-General of the Federal Police, Sr. Delegado Paulo Lacerda

Serve a presente para informar o que segue.

May these presents serve to inform you of the following.

Em 28 de setembro de 2006 enviei à Vossa Excelência cópia do oficio 086/2006 – NAE/PR dirigida ao sr. Ministro de Estado da Justiça, sr. Marcio Thomaz Bastos, na qual levantava suspeita de “que suposta operação estaria em curso, e envolveria escutas ilegais e divulgação de informações falsas”, com a finalidade de atingir a honorabilidade da minha pessoa.

On Sept. 28, 2006, I sent you a copy of Report No. 086/2006 NAE/PR, which was addressed to the Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos, in which I raised suspicions that “an operation may be afoot that involves illegal wiretapping and publication of disinformation” for the purpose of slandering my person.

Ainda no ofício afirmava que “como é do conhecimento de Vossa Excelência, não é a primeira vez que isso ocorre e um exemplo desse comportamento ignominioso ocorreu no mês de maio do corrente ano, em que a revista Veja que circulou com a data de 17/05/06, publicou um falso dossiê com diversas contas bancárias, inclusive uma atribuída ao Senhor Presidente da República. Mas não é só. Essa prática nefanda, levada a efeito pelo sr. Daniel Dantas e pessoas a ele ligadas, já vem de longa data, tendo sido realizados atos de espionagem ilegal e violação de sigilo telefônico, feitos pela empresa Kroll Associates, bem como o suborno de jornalistas para que publiquem matérias de conteúdo falso e altamente ofensivo à minha pessoa. A propósito disso, as revistas Veja e Carta Capital, já publicaram matéria apontando que o sr. Leonardo Attuch, da revista Isto É, seria um desses jornalistas.”.

In that complaint, I wrote that “as the Minister knows, this is not the first time thi has happened; an example of this type of ignominious behavior occured in May of this year, when the VejaKroll Associates, as well a magazine edition of May 17 published a false dossier purporting to describe various bank accounts, including one allegedly controlled by the President of the Republic. But that is not all. This sleazy practice, which was put into action by Daniel Dantas and persons tied to him, has been going on for a long time now, and has even involved illegal wiretapping and violation of telephone privacy and the bribing of journalists to publish articles with assertions that are false and highly offensive to my person. Regarding which Veja and CartaCapital have already published articles suggesting that Leonrard Attuch, of IstoÉ magazine, might be one of said journalists.

Daquela data até o dia de hoje, outros fatos têm ocorrido:

Since then, other facts have arisen:

Em 23/08/06 a revista Veja, na coluna Radar, o jornalista Lauro Jardim redige matéria difamante sobre minha pessoa, cujo desmentido não mereceu espaço em sua coluna, apesar das abundantes provas apresentadas ao referido jornalista sobre o caráter calunioso e inverídico da matéria. Diz a matéria: “Gushiken revelou-se requintado… serviu-se de uma garrafa de Grand Vin de Chateau Latour, safra 1994, um tinto apreciadíssimo. Depois, o “China” acendeu um charuto cubano… Total da brincadeira: 3.500 reais. A conta foi paga em dinheiro vivo”. Frente a tais calúnias já adotei as medidas judiciais cabíveis.

On August 23, 2006, in Veja, in the Radar column, Lauro Jardim published an article that defamed me personally, and did not consider my rejoinder worthy of space, despite the abundant evidence presented to the journalist of the slanderous and false character of his article. The article stated: “Guishiken showed that he is a man of sophisticated taste … he was served with a bottle of Chateau Latour 1994, a highly coveted vintage. Afterwards, “Chinaman” lit up a Cuban cigar … the tab for the whole thing: R$3,500. The account was paid in cash.”  Faced with such slander, I have alread taken the appropriate legal measures.

You can get a nice Romeo y Julieta at the duty-free — a corona, naturally, not a puro — for, I don’t know, $R30. But I am rather fond of Bahian cigars myself.

 24 de janeiro de 2007, na revista Veja, o colunista Diogo Mainardi, comentando o assalto que eu e minha família fomos vítimas em 20/12/06, sugere maliciosamente que os recursos financeiros em reais que os ladrões roubaram sofreram sonegação fiscal por ação deliberada de minha parte; sugerindo também que os recursos em dólares roubados na mesma ocasião poderiam alcançar cifras elevadíssimas. É o que está dito na matéria aludida: “Quanto? Nos últimos anos, os petistas se acostumaram a lidar com grandes valores, 315.000 dólares? … Por falar em China, quanto ele tinha em Indaiatuba? 3.150.000 dólares?”

On Jan 24, 2007, in Veja magazine, columnist Diogo Mainardi, commenting on the armed robbery that I and my familiar were victims of on Dec. 20, 2006, suggests maliciously that the money, in reals, that the robbers took from us were part of a deliberate act on my part to avoid paying taxes; and he also suggests that the dollars stolen at that time might have been an extremely large sum. He is what he says: “How much? In recent years, the PT people have gotten used to dealing in big sums, $315,000? … And speaking of Chinaman, how much did he have with him in Indaíatuba? $3,150,000?”

Em verdade, os recursos roubados têm origem legal, jamais foram objeto de sonegação fiscal. Quanto aos dólares a cifra gira entre U$ 2.400,00 (dois mil e quatrocentos dólares) a U$ 2.700,00 e correspondem às sobras de viagem que fizemos ao exterior, para o qual minha esposa efetivou uma operação em casa de câmbio oficialmente autorizada pelo Banco Central, no valor total de U$ 4.428,00 (quatro mil, quatrocentos e vinte e oito dólares), no dia 08 de novembro, cujos comprovantes encontram-se em minhas mãos. Aliás, o referido assalto se deu três dias após nosso retorno.

The fact is that the money stolen was of legal origin and had never been subjected to tax evasion. As to the dollars, the amount was between US$2,400 and US$2,700, which was left over from a trip abroad, for purposes of which my wife purchased a total of US$4,428.00 at a foreign exchange agency authorized by the Central Bank on Nov. 8, whose receipts you will find in my possession. Furthermore, the robbery in question occurred three days after our return. 

As referidas matérias induziram os leitores a uma falsa idéia sobre o meu patrimônio e sua origem. E como minha honra e imagem pessoal foram afetadas, estou tomando as providências cabíveis no âmbito da Justiça.

These articles provided the readers with a false notion about my wealth and its origins. Because my honor and personal image were affected, I am taking the appropriate legal measures.

Great. I love it when judges have to evaluate the illocutionary force of disingenuous rhetorical questions, to decide whether they are disingenuous or not.

Se não bastassem os sofrimentos e os traumas terríveis resultantes do assalto e a nossa impotência frente às mentiras e difamações, cuja reparação “a posteriori” jamais eliminará por completo os efeitos do veneno da calúnia, muitas indagações perturbam o meu espírito: por que razão minha pessoa é alvo de ações difamantes? Existe ação orquestrada, envolvendo empresários nessa ação de demolição da reputação alheia, induzindo jornalistas a matérias equivocadas?

As if the suffering and trauma I have undergone as a result of the robbery, and my powerlessness before these lies and slander, whose a posteriori remedies will never completely eliminate the effects of the poison of slander, were not enough, my spirit continues to be troubled by a number of questons: Why am I the target of these slanders? This orchestrated campaign, with businessman involved in this action of demolishing someone else’s reputation, directing journalists to write false reports?

Sr. Delegado, Estas são observações e preocupações sobre um contexto no qual, infelizmente, minha pessoa e meus familiares somos vítimas de ações pérfidas. E o que é pior, minha intuição é que estas ações tendem a continuar, porque me parecem articuladas, possivelmente em face dos desafetos gerados e de grandes interesses contrariados quando exerci a função de Ministro de Estado, razão pela qual solicito a adoção de medidas policiais cabíveis considerando os termos do ofício já aludido de 28/09/06.

Sir, these are observations and concerns I have about the context in which, sadly, my person and my family members are being victimized by perfidious actions. What is worse, my intuition is that these actions will continue, because they seem to be to be deliberately planned, possibly as a response to disaffections incurred and interests negatively affected by me in the course of my employment as a Minister of State, which is why I request that you take the appropriate investigative measures with respect to the report I submitted on Sept. 28, 2006.

[Yours in Elvis],
Luiz Gushiken.

O jornalista Leonardo Attuch responde à carta de Gushiken, neste domingo, em artigo publicado na revista eletrônica Consultor Jurídico.

Leonardo Attuch responded to the Gushiken letter this Sunday in an article published on Consultor Jurídico.

I am not familiar with Gushiken’s case, except that he is one of the functionaries of whom Lula said repeatedly during the campaign, “I fire ministers that fall under suspicion of corruption, whereas FHC quashed investigations.”

Without meaning to seem partisan here it seems to me that Lula was dealing more or less the straight dope on that point.

In all the cases used to “criminalize” the PT over the past year or two, the crooked petistas involved — the most famous being the “dollars in the underwear” guy busted at Congonhas Airport — were joined by, and in many cases accused by, equally crooked members of other parties.

To me — and I am working on fleshing out this theory — there is a much higher correlation between four other factors, on one hand, and corruption charges, on the other, than there is between political party and corruption. What most of these cases have in common is that they involve :

• Politicians from Minas Gerais, of various parties
• Politicans from São Paulo, of various parties
• The advertising and marketing industry
• State-owned enterprises

You hear this a lot outside of the Southeastern region, in fact: People say, not that one party or another is corrupt and is it not horrible, but rather, “Ué, coisa de paulista.”

At best. It’s often just a blanket “all politicians are slimy, corrupt bastards.”

Still, as Marcelo Beraba of the Folha has pointed out, quite correctly, the fact that the PT has historically positioned itself as the party of ethics in politics gives the accusations against PT members a certain additional urgency.

So obviously it will not do to say that PT politicians account for a much smaller percentage of the actual indictments and convictions in these cases.

Because in Brazil, sadly, a lot can happen between indictment and conviction. Look at Ney Suassuna’s case before the ethics committee in Congress.

Still, the question as whether PT personages who fell afoul of the executive-branch’s ethics code — decreed by Itamar Franco in 1994 — and got fired for it also ran afoul of law?

That’s an open question.

And not one to which Brazilian justice is necessarily going to give a definitive answer, either, taking into account that the judiciary is what it is in Brazil — susceptible to morphing into a politicized revolving-door family business.

And look: Alckmin’s 69 Unconstitutionally Quashed Corruption Investigations.

My Dumb-Ass Take

Personally, as a gringo-libertarian and tropical castaway, these “honor” lawsuits always make me nervous, especially when they rely on dictatorship-era provisions that protect the plaintiff in his or her official capacity, as in the Bornhausen-Sader case.

Gushiken seems to be insisting on personal, not institutional, libel, to his credit, in this letter.

On the other hand, why he is finking to the cops?

Well, partly because the Kroll case involves alleged wiretapping of federal elected officials.

And — just so you know where CartaCapital is coming from — illegal wiretapping of journalists, including Amorim, the fellow who is publishing the letter.

The issue in question?

Telecom market regulation and antitrust policy.

But the more general question, one that the superior political risk manager will ask, is whether it is illegal to bribe journalists in Brazil, or for news organizations to lie to the public.

Which takes us back to the Fox NEWS-Monsanto and Fox NEWS-Intel cases once again.

In some recent cases, for example, journalists have gone to jail for both those reasons, and no one has screamed “assault on freedom of the press” aftewards.

Or at least not very loudly.

Why?

Because they were caught taking money to conduct pump and dump stock fraud in their published column, for example.

I am thinking of a U.K. case that I will look up and link for you shortly.

This is an ethical question that constantly occupies me.

Obviously, the paid “pumper and dumper” deserves to rot in some sort of unpleasant situation, somewhere between permanent unemployment and Devil’s Island.

But what about news organizations that pay people to publish disinformation that favors the business interests of the firm they work for?

I find this outrageous, as you know from reading the blog.

But should it be illegal per se?

(If it were, one hears, the Foreign Corrupt Practices laws might well kick in and tickle the tail over some of the local gringo patrol.)

Or should it merely figure in a regulator’s deliberations on whether a public concessionaire has satisified the public-service clause in their concession, as Uncle Hugo is arguing?

Or there are third-way alternatives to this Hobson’s choice?

And don’t insult my intelligence by saying “industry self-regulation.”

Please.

I used to like to think that strong, independent unions and guilds of rank-and-file reporters and line editors, publishing prestigious codes of conduct that are taught to and demanded by an informed public, would help.

But instead we have the Society of Professional Journalists.

So in the worst-case scenario, if I had to choose, I would probably have to go with the latter mode of Stalinist persecution for the 7 Families here in Brazil — the ones  who got the 1,000,000,000 megawatt microphone free from the government and now try to hide behind the First Amendment Article 222 to protect what they see as their droit du seigneur.

Take that shit on the road in an unplugged version, dude.

No one’s stopping you.

Manda bala.

Hey, you could even start a blog.