A key aide of Brazil’s President Michel Temer has been indicted on charges of corruption and money-laundering. Senator Romero Juca, one of the major architects of the Temer administration’s reform agenda and an advocate for central bank independence, is being charged with soliciting illegal campaign funding of construction company Odebrecht in return for political favors.
The Senate on Tuesday rejected a decision of Brazil's top court and returned a suspended lawmaker to his post, in what critics said was the latest self-protection move by politicians accused of corruption.
Brazil's Supreme Court has rejected a request by the nation’s Attorney General to arrest three senior members of acting President Michel Temer’s party in connection with the massive corruption investigation focused on Petrobras.
Brazil's political crisis heated up Tuesday, as authorities reportedly sought the arrests of senior figures behind the push to impeach suspended president Dilma Rousseff, accusing them of obstructing a corruption probe, according to the country's leading newspapers. This happens less than two months to go before Rio de Janeiro hosts the Summer Olympics.
Brazil's prosecutor general found evidence linking the tourism minister of interim President Michel Temer to the corruption scheme at Petrobras, newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported on Monday. Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot included intercepted phone messages in a request to the Supreme Court for a formal investigation of Tourism Minister Henrique Eduardo Alves, Folha reported in publishing excerpts of the messages.
Suspended President Dilma Rousseff said in an interview published Sunday that leaked audio recordings of men backing her impeachment show the effort to oust her is meant to stop a wide-ranging corruption probe that has implicated numerous leading Brazilian politicians and businessmen.
Brazil's Planning Minister Romero Juca said on Monday he will temporarily step down after a newspaper published recordings of him discussing plans to obstruct the country's biggest-ever corruption investigation, which includes him among its targets.
Brazilian federal judge hearing the Petrobras case, Sergio Moro, avoided commenting Monday on the voice recording in which a minister of acting-President Michel Temer suggests ways to end the investigation into corruption at the state-run oil company Petrobras, but warned that the government should not interfere in trials, which are the responsibility of the justice system.
A anticipated Brazil's largest party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, PMDB, announced on Tuesday it was leaving President Dilma Rousseff's governing coalition and pulling its members from her government, a departure that raises the odds she could be impeached in a matter of months.
Brazil's Congress Lower House passed a bill on Wednesday toughening access to social security pensions, the second measure approved in a week to cut benefits in a drive to reduce a growing fiscal deficit.