“This is not lawfare nor judicial party, it is a parallel State and mafia”. This is how he referred to Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to the framework that made possible his sentence of six years in prison and perpetual political ban.
Before they carried out military coups, now it is enough for them to agree between political, media and judicial powers. And we can say so with such certainty because what has been revealed in the last two months about parastatal power in Argentina is a scandal, which, unlike the news about CFK’s conviction, went unnoticed in the international media.
I go in chronological order. In mid-October, the daily Page 12 publishes an exclusive in which he reveals details of a trip on a private plane to a mansion of more than 3,000 square meters in Patagonia, on Lago Escondido, which belongs to English billionaire tycoon Joe Lewis.
The interesting thing about the leak is the guest list: judges, prosecutors, former Macrismo ministers, Macrismo security agents, current ministers of the city of Buenos Aires and businessmen specializing in digital campaigns.
There are many names, but we are going to highlight the one of the Judge Julian Ercolinithe least militant, who was in charge of investigating the ‘Roads’ case, for which Cristina Kirchner was finally sentenced to six years in prison and political disqualification.
Page 12 suggests in that post that the reason for the trip It could not be other than agreeing to guarantee that Mauricio Macri continues to go unpunished in the cases in which he is accused, and that the judicial and media persecution of CFK continues. It might seem like an unsupported hypothesis to us, but what happens later does nothing to reinforce it.
For weeks the publication goes largely unnoticed, until at the beginning of December a group of hackers hacks the telephone number of the Buenos Aires Minister of Security, Marcelo D’Alessandro, who was on board that plane, among others, and publishes some Telegram chats. Thanks to those chats we found out a series of scandalous things.
First, we learn that the members of the trip you spoke of Page 12 they realized the seriousness of the published information before anyone else. The same day of publication created a group between judges, prosecutors, former ministers, ministers who were on board, and the hosts who received them in Patagonia and were in charge of all expenses. The hosts are none other than executives from Grupo Clarín, Pablo Casey, nephew of Héctor Magnetto himself.
The Telegram group was intended to know how to credibly respond to what happened. What explanation to give to the fact that the trip was not paid for by them? How to stop the spread of the news in the media? How to put pressure on the judiciary so that they are not prosecuted? First of all, suggests Judge Julián Ercolini, not at all militant, let’s remember, that they have to organize the speech well.
They talk about making “trout” bills to make it look like that they assumed the costs.
At one point they state that they could say that it was all about a fishing excursion, but one of the members says that the season has not even started, which would not sound credible at all.
Then, the foreign affairs director of Grupo Clarín, and one of the hosts, Jorge Rendo, formulates the proposal to excuse them.
In addition to adjusting the version they would give of what happened, they talk about who could be behind the leak. They suspect the Airport Security Police, and one of them says that it will cross with its boss.
Minister D’Alessandro, from whose phone everything came out, adds that if he were Minister of National Government, directly would dissolve to the airport police.
In the chat their concern is also denoted because photos and videos are leaked in which they can be seen how Clarín managers receive them at the airport. And they also talk about how they are going to close the legal case in response to the complaint about the flight and the gifts.
When everything was leaked and made public, the government of Alberto Fernández ordered the travelers to be denounced for the crime of breaching the duties of a public official and admitting gifts.
Those chats are an extraordinary confession of multiple crimes at once: influence peddling, offering and receiving gifts, concealment, falsification of documents and evidence (‘trucha facturitas’), prevarication, etc. We see how first a crime is committed, that of receiving a bribe traveling in a private jet with everything paid for. And then more crimes are committed to cover up that first crime.
They are a perfect example of how the judiciary, the media power and the right violate democracy, conspire to protect each other, and attack their adversaries, taking refuge in the Penal Code and the law.
All of this is in those Telegram chats, and if with just one thing that comes up we find out so much, imagine what is not known. In the end, when CFK talks about a parallel state, it wasn’t a figure of speech.
