The Brazilian Earthquake--by Pepe Escobar
The Brazilian Earthquake
by Pepe Escobar March 8, 2016
Imagine one of the most admired global political leaders in modern history taken from his apartment at 6 am by armed Brazilian Federal Police agents and forced into an unmarked car to the Sao Paulo airport to be interrogated for almost four hours in connection with a billion dollar corruption scandal involving the giant state oil company Petrobras.
This is the stuff Hollywood is made of. And that was exactly the logic behind the elaborate production.
The public prosecutors of the two-year-old Car Wash investigation maintain there are elements of proof implicating Lula in receiving funds at least 1.1 million euros from the dodgy kickback scheme involving major Brazilian construction companies connected to Petrobras. Lula might and the operative word is might have personally profited from it mostly in the form of a ranch (which he does not own), a relatively modest seaside apartment, speaking fees in the global lecture circuit, and donations to his charity.
Lula is the ultimate political animal on a Bill Clinton level. He had already telegraphed he was waiting for such a gambit, as the Car Wash machine had already arrested dozens of people suspected of embezzling contracts between their companies and Petrobras to the tune of over $2 billion to pay for politicians of the Workers Party (PT), of which Lula was leader.
Lulas name surfaced via the proverbial rascal turned informer, eager to strike a plea bargain. The working hypothesis there is no smoking gun is that Lula, when he led Brazil between 2003 and 2010, personally benefited from the corruption scheme with Petrobras at the center, obtaining favors for himself, the PT and the government. Meanwhile, inefficient President Dilma Rousseff is herself under attack engineered via a plea bargain by the former government leader in the Senate.
Lula was questioned in connection to money laundering, corruption and suspected dissimulation of assets. The Hollywood blitz was cleared by federal judge Sergio Moro who always insists hes been inspired by the Italian judge Antonio di Pietro and the notorious 1990s Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) investigation.
And here, inevitably, the plot thickens.
Round up the usual media suspects
Moro and the Car Wash prosecutors justified the Hollywood blitz insisting Lula refused to be interrogated. Lula and the PT vehemently insist otherwise.
And yet Car Wash investigators had consistently leaked to mainstream media words to the effect, We cant just bite Lula. When we get to him, we will swallow him. This would imply, at a minimum, a politicization of justice, the Federal Police and the Public Ministry. And would also imply that the Hollywood blitz may have been supported by a smoking gun. As perception is reality in the frenetic non-stop news cycle, the news instantly global was that Lula was arrested because hes corrupt.
Continued...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/08/the-brazilian-earthquake/