By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s outgoing President, Michel Temer, said on Thursday that despite his many accomplishments in public life, the latest accusations of wrongdoing during his political career have left him extremely upset.
“I had a very dignified life and, in spite of everything, very discreet. Therefore, when the attacks of a moral nature come, it bothers me. It’s the only thing that bothers me,” Temer told an audience.
On Wednesday, Brazil’s Attorney General, Raquel Dodge, filed accusations against President Temer in the country’s Federal Supreme Court (STF) for crimes of active, passive corruption and money laundering.
According to the AG, Temer started to negotiate his influence in the port sector around 1998, when he was a federal deputy and made the first nominations to CODESP (São Paulo State Dock Company).
“On the one hand, Michel Temer received the representatives of the company via Rodrigo Rocha Loures, demonstrating all his power to benefit it by virtue of his position (potential office) and, on the other vertex, accepted a promise of undue advantage, as a natural consequence of a perennial criminal relationship,” stated the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) in its request.
With the end of Temer’s term less than fifteen days away, Dodge requested that, as of January 1st, the case be referred to a Federal Court in Brasilia and not the STF, due to the loss of Temer’s privileged forum.
A statement issued by Temer’s press office said the President is innocent of any wrongdoing. “President Michel Temer will prove, in the judicial records, that there was no irregularity in the Ports Decree, nor any illicit benefit to any company.”
Throughout 2017, the PGR accused Temer twice, once for involvement in the Petrobras’s scandal and another for obstruction of justice. At the time, the Chamber of Deputies did not authorize the investigation by the Federal Supreme Court (STF).