Correio Braziliense, April 12, 2017
A Supreme Court judge’s bombshell decision has many of the Brazil’s top political figures running for cover, the daily Correio Braziliense reports.
On Tuesday, Judge Edson Fachin extended the already three-year-old Lava Jato (“Car Wash”) anti-corruption probe by opening investigations into 108 people suspected of involvement in a massive bribery and embezzlement operation. The names feature inside bombs on today’s front page of the Brasilia-based daily, which reads “Fachin’s list blows up the country’s political elite.”
The list including eight ministers in the current government, along former presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), and numerous members of Congress. President Michel Temer, who automatically succeeded Dilma Rousseff after her impeachment last year, is also named in the case but protected by his presidential immunity.
The ongoing probe and scandal, which continues to rock Brazilian politics ever harder, is raising serious questions against the political elite and their privileges in a country faced with its worst financial and economic crisis in recent history.