Brazil judges clash over evidence in case against president
RIO DE JANEIRO — Judges on Brazil’s top electoral court argued on Wednesday whether to accept new evidence of alleged illegal campaign contributions that stem from a sweeping probe of graft in Latin America’s largest nation as they consider a case that could force President Michel Temer from office.
The ruling on revelations from recent plea bargains would be a strong indication of how the court is leaning, and Wednesday’s testy debate showed sharp divisions between the judges who appear to favour accepting the damaging revelations and those who oppose. The latter camp includes Superior Electoral Tribunal President Gilmar Mendes, who has called the president whose political fate he is deciding “a friend of decades.”
At issue is whether the 2014 campaign of Temer, then vice-president, and former President Dilma Rousseff received illegal financing. If the court finds it did, Temer could be removed from office, adding further to the country’s corruption-fueled political turmoil.
Defence attorneys argue that evidence in the case was submitted long ago, and say the court shouldn’t be able to consider new revelations that emerged from plea bargains by 77 executives at the huge construction company Odebrecht, one of the businesses at the centre of a sprawling investigation into kickbacks and bribes at the state-run oil company Petrobras.