From the nostalgic 90s: President Collor as media-made … and media-unmade … man
Via Comunique-se.
Select outlets of the Brazilian press celebrate a World Bank database on corruption cases that names two notorious figures — ex-São Paulo mayor and governor Paulo Maluf — Maluf! — and the media and telecoms venture capitalist Daniel Dantas.
Meanwhile, the congressional commission examining the scandal of Mr. Waterfall drones on as efforts continue to quash the wiretaps on which the case is founded. This essential legal detail gets very little coverage, however.
The senior federal judge in charge of analyzing the motion has already voted in favor of throwing out the evidence on the grounds of insufficent cause for the warrant. Two other judges on the panel — roughly equivalent to a federal appeals court — have yet to weigh in.
And a former Supreme Court justice, Gilmar Mendes — scrutinized over travels on a private jet allegedly paid for by the Waterfall organization — has already demonstrated, in spades and ex parte, a similar distaste for a supposed «police state» based on court-ordered wiretaps.
In fact, Mendes famously claimed that he had been the victim of some infinitely sneaky wireless war driver in his chambers, who allegedly captured a conversation with Senator Demosthenes Torres of the DEM — a central figure in the current scandal .
At the time, Veja amplified the allegation, but when the federal police found absolutely no evidence of such activity it issued no mea culpa.
An excerpt from today’s news flow, and I translate … (more…)
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