Brazil’s Rousseff files defense as impeachment looms

BRASÍLIA, Brazil (UPDATED) – Brazil’s suspended president Dilma Rousseff rejected attempts to impeach her as an “injustice” in a defense filing Wednesday, July 6, as a decision on her political fate moved a step closer.

The affair has rocked Latin America’s biggest nation as it struggles with a recession and corruption scandals ahead of next month’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

In a written defense statement to a Senate impeachment committee, the 68-year-old leftist leader denied she had breached the constitution by fiddling government accounts.

She recalled her past as a leftist dissident under Brazil’s dictatorship in the 1970s, when she was tortured, and more recently, her battle to overcome cancer.

“What hurts most at this moment is the injustice,” said her statement, read out by her lawyer Eduardo Cardozo.

“What hurts most is seeing that I am being made a victim of a judicial and political farce,” it added.

“I was not responsible for committing any crime,” the statement said. “I never diverted a single cent of public money for my personal gain or for that of third parties.”

Impeachment timetable

The full Senate is due to hear the commission’s non-binding verdict on August 4.

Brazil hosts the Olympic Games from August 5 to 21.

The Senate will then vote in a plenary session between August 25 and 27 on whether to remove Rousseff from office for good by impeaching her.

At that point Rousseff will have the opportunity to appear in person to defend herself.

That would be her last chance to try to swing a few crucial Senate votes in her favor, though analysts are judging it unlikely she will escape impeachment.

Rousseff has denounced the impeachment drive as a coup.

She declined to appear in person to defend herself on Wednesday before the 21-member commission, which is dominated by her political rivals.

“The cards are marked in this game and we advised the president not to come and endorse this coup, and that she only attend the plenary,” said Lindbergh Farias, a senator from Rousseff’s Workers’ Party.

Corruption scandal

If 2/3 of the full Senate eventually vote to impeach Rousseff, she will be immediately removed from office.

“The issue is already settled. The crimes were committed and have been proven,” opposition senator Cassio Cunha Lima told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.

He estimated that 59 Senators would ultimately vote to impeach Rousseff – just 4 more than the majority needed.

Rousseff was suspended from office in May after lawmakers voted to hold an impeachment trial over allegations that she fiddled government accounts while running for re-election.

Her former vice president turned rival, Michel Temer, has replaced Rousseff as acting head of state. Several of his ministers have already stepped down over separate corruption allegations.

Unless fresh elections are held, Temer will expect to serve as president until the end of Rousseff’s term in 2018.

Brazil is suffering a deep recession and numerous politicians are implicated in a separate corruption probe centering on state oil firm Petrobras.

Among those caught up in that probe is Rousseff’s predecessor and ally Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

He returned to the headlines on Tuesday when his lawyers called in a statement for the case against him to be handed to a different judge.

They accused investigating judge Sergio Moro of “abuse of authority,” alleging he had “lost his impartiality” in the politically explosive case.

Moro has been criticized over the leaking of a recorded conversation between Lula and Rousseff. – Rappler.com