Brazil’s Temer charged with obstruction of justice

SAO PAULO (AP) – Brazilian President Michel Temer was charged with obstruction of justice and leading a criminal organization on Thursday, the latest fallout from a wide-ranging corruption probe that has ensnared many of the elite in Latin America’s largest nation.

In filings to the country’s top court, Attorney General Rodrigo Janot accused Temer of paying hush funds to a former speaker of the lower Chamber of Deputies and to an operator of his political group. Janot also alleged that Temer led the criminal organization that operates in Brazil’s Congress and the executive branch.

Temer has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

As a sitting president, Temer will only be put on trial if two-thirds of Brazil’s lower house votes to suspend him from office.

Janot charged Temer with bribery earlier this year, but in August lawmakers refused to allow those proceedings to go forward.

In the latest accusations, Janot said that Temer led a criminal organization since May 2016, when he assumed the presidency. Temer, then vice president, took over when President Dilma Rousseff was impeached and later removed from office for illegally managing the federal budget.

Temer “promoted, organized and integrated willingly and personally a criminal organization formed by more than four people, including public agents who abused their positions to commit crimes” to obtain advantages in the government and Chamber of Deputies, wrote Janot.

The widely expected charges came hours after authorities raided the home of a member of Temer’s Cabinet.

The operation was authorized by Brazil’s top court and is part of an investigation of Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi, who is suspected of bribing state lawmakers during his 2003-2010 terms as governor of Mato Grosso.

Police also raided offices of eight state lawmakers and the mayor of the state capital, Cuiaba, in connection with the case. The investigation began after a plea bargain was struck with Maggi’s successor as governor, Silval Barbosa.

A police statement did not say whether Maggi was present during the raid at his apartment in the national capital, Brasilia.

Maggi denied any wrongdoing in his political or business dealings.

“There was never a move by me or authorized by me to act illegally in my administration’s decisions or to obstruct justice,” he said in a statement.

But in the decision to green-light the raids, Supreme Court justice Luiz Fux said there was “clear evidence” that Maggi also tried to obstruct justice by paying bribes to a former state government secretary.

Maggi is one of Brazil’s wealthiest agro-business leaders, known as the king of soybeans. He was elected senator in 2011 and named by Temer to his Cabinet post in May 2016.

Maggi is one of several Temer officials under investigation, and some have resigned in the last year over corruption allegations.

FILE – In this March 22, 2017 file photo, Brazil’s Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi, right, accompanied by a sanitary inspection agent, collects meat products for testing, in a supermarket in Brasilia, Brazil. Police have raided Maggi’s, seeking evidence in yet another corruption case. The operation is part of an investigation of the top government official, who is suspected of bribing state lawmakers for political support during his 2003-2010 term as governor of Mato Grosso. In a statement, Maggi denied any wrongdoing in his political or business dealings. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)