Azeredo Campaign Funded From The Bald One’s Laundry

Marco Valério Fernandes de Souza: Kojak fan, mineiro, ad man and slush-fund facilitator. 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.

Cinform Online | Independência e Credibilidade reports — sourced to Folha Online, although I am not sure whether the item also ran in print edition, which is always an interesting question when it comes to the Folha’s “if you cannot bring good news then don’t bring any” strategy for divulging public-interest information — that the Brazilian federal police has found that a 1998 campaign by PSDB president and current federal senator Eduardo Azeredo benefited from misappropriation of public funds and money laundering.

But the PF, according to this report, “did not recommend indictments” in the case.

Which is one way of looking at it, sure.

As I have observed before:

in Brazil, you can wait forever for clarification [of pending scandals], and miss it if you blink‘

See also Waiting for the Other Chinelo to Drop and The Other Shoe Gets Dropped … by the Blogs.

A PF não indiciou nenhum dos investigados. Fez a opção por indicar, no relatório, qual teria sido o papel de cada um deles nos fatos apurados’

The PF did not indict any of the persons investigated. It opted, in its report, for pointing out, in its report, what may have been the role of each in the facts it uncovered.

A Polícia Federal deve enviar hoje ao STF a conclusão do inquérito sobre o suposto caixa dois que sustentou a fracassada campanha do senador Eduardo Azeredo (PSDB) para se reeleger governador de Minas em 1998.

The PF is to send the Supreme Court today [Friday, March 16] its conclusions from an inquiry into alleged caixa dois [illegal campaign slush fund operations] that supported the failed campaign of Sen. Eduardo Azeredo (PSDB) for reelection as governor of Minas Gerais in 1998.

Friday is the best day for breaking bad news. It never gets picked up over the weekend.

And the Google News newsflow on Azeredo at the moment is absolutely swimming in — to mix a metaphor — a massive blitz of press release rewrites on the Senator’s latest legislative initiatives — though not the infamous Azeredo-Magalhães Information Superhighway Driver’s License Act of 2006, mind you.

Total number of current Google News Brasil results on the search string “eduardo azeredo” as of this posting: 102.

Total number of current Google News Brasil results on the search string “eduardo azeredo” + “caixa dois”: 1.

Conforme a investigação, houve a prática de peculato (desvio de recursos públicos) e lavagem de dinheiro, em benefício da campanha, sob o comando do empresário Marcos Valério de Souza.

According to the investigation, acts of “peculation” (misallocation of public funds) and money-laundering benefited the campaign, under the supervision of ad man Marcos Valério de Souza.

Aka Belo Horizonte Baldy.

A PF não indiciou nenhum dos investigados. Fez a opção por indicar, no relatório, qual teria sido o papel de cada um deles nos fatos apurados.

The PF did not indict any of the subjects of its investigation, opting for pointing out, in its report, the alleged role of each subject in the facts it uncovered.

Unlike Gringoland, police delegados here have some (what seem, to an innocent abroad, like redundant) prosecutorial or quasi-prosecutorial functions. I find this very confusing. But those powers are being, ahem, renegotiated within the framework of legal reforms, I think you could say, generally speaking.

Entre o que foi investigado está a suposta participação do ministro Walfrido Mares Guia (Turismo) na campanha. Consta do rol de papéis anexados ao inquérito um manuscrito, em que o ministro faz um planejamento de quanto seria necessário investir para reeleger Azeredo. Walfrido sempre negou ter participado da campanha.

Among the matters investigated was the alleged participation of state tourism minister Walfrido Mares Guia in the campaign. Among the roll of papers appended to the report is a manuscript in which the minister plans how much money will be needed to reelect Azeredo. Walfrido has consistently denied participating in the campaign.

Em 2005, Azeredo admitiu ter se beneficiado de R$ 8,5 milhões em recursos não declarados ao TRE, uma prática que, diz, não teria chegado a seu conhecimento à época.

In 2005, Azeredo admitted having benefited from R$8.5 million in funds not declared to the regional elections tribunal, a practice which he says he was not made aware of at the time.

In a related story, CartaCapital magazine is reporting this week that a document that was denounced as a forgery by PSDB and PFL federal deputies during the congressional investigation of this matter — a record of illegal contributions by the state-owned Furnas energy company to a variety of political parties, including the Azeredo campaign — has been found “probably authentic” by document experts.

If that holds up, the document could support the hypothesis that the Azeredo campaign in question received as much as R$40 million in illegal contributions, the newsweekly reports.

One of the politicians who admitted receiving money from Furnas is Roberto Jefferson. He admitted, reported CC, to receiving an amount — R$75,000 — that jibes with the amount listed under his name in the Furnas document, which outlines a strategy for collecting political favors from recipients of its political generosity.

I will try to translate a bit of that for you.

It is an excellent analysis of the current state of play, the current state of the evidence, and the involvement of many opposition anti-corruption moralists in a situation which, as CC describes, operated full-bore under FHC and was later probably made use of by figures tied to the governing bloc during Lula I.

I say probably because the actual facts in the Lula I cases remain sunk in a mire of fear, uncertainty, doubt and noise.

On the status of FHC-era cases, a typical headline would be Alckmin’s 69 Unconstitutionally Quashed Investigations and some caveats on the “all Brazilian politicians, cops and judges are fabulously corrupt” meme in my post on Manda Bala: The Frog Farmer is Dornelles [Correction: No, It Isn’t].

Look: It is in the interest of ladrões to call those who are calling them ladrões ladrões. It is practically the second national sport here, after futebol, and recognizably Rovean.
CC, in fact, has a nice analysis of how this dynamic figures into the recipe for what locals call pizza — “I will not try to ratfuck you on corruption charges if you let my guy off the hook.” See also The Teacher Takes Rove to School for what I strongly suspect is a Mexican manifestation of the tactic.

The federal elections authorities (TSE), mixing metaphors, have said they have approached the problem of caixa dois with “an iron fist in a kid glove” in recent elections — up to and including, in some cases, the possibility of cancelling the mandates of elected candidates who benefitted from irregularities, whether wittingly or not.

Sort of a Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 principle for political campaigns: You sign your campaign finance statements, you live or die by their accuracy and validity.

But the TSE president, who is also a Supreme Court justice, has also recently backed down from his support for a potentially landmark decision that would invalidate the 1993 official misconduct law — a case I have been referring to as the Extra-Large Pizza With Everyone On It? affair.

The Azeredo case could well bring that issue up again, it seems to me, and test the “I had no idea” defense he is currently offering.

Likewise, the Vilela strategy in the Alagoas e-elections fraud case seems to be that if fraud occurred, and his campaign benefited from it, but the candidate was unwitting, he ought to be able to keep his job as governor of Alagoas.

That is my (amateur, mind you) reading based on reports I translated for my billion readers a day — assuming that everyone on the Internet has access to this blog, I figure my potential exposure to key influentials is at least that — in Alagoas E-Elections Saga: “Urns” Not in Ashes To Be Tested.

Interesting.

It is fascinating to watch this case unfold in parallel with the Alberto Gonzalez flap, which allegedly involved greasy acts of ratfucking U.S. Attorneys who did not aggressively pursue corruption and elections governance cases against political opponents — even as political allies received massive political cover against being investigated for wrongdoing.

You know what I’m talking about.

See, for example, Alagoas and Ohio: E-Elections on Trial in Alternate Hemispheres.

The issue of politicized prosecution also arose in the Brazilian case cited above, for example, when federal prosecutors pointed out that at least one of the Supreme Court justices voting on the case would benefit personally from his vote.

See Folha in a Finer Hour: Judging Judges Judging Judges.

The names of two other Supreme Courts justices have surfaced in the Ball of Fire investigations here — including that of the TSE president — but we have no further information yet with which to interpret those factoids. See also The Ball of Fire MP3s: Pertence, Publicity and the Perpetual Pizza Oven and A Golden Moment for Marco Aurélio?

Or perhaps we do. We may have simply blinked and missed it.