"I have never received anything from this gentleman", says Alcolumbre about Vorcaro

The president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), stated this Tuesday (16) that he never received any amount from former banker Daniel Vorcaro, from Banco Master.

The senator's statement makes reference to the report published by Veja Magazine which disclosed the former banker's sending of US$30 million to Alcolumbre in an account abroad.

The transfer would have been made in return for Alcolumbre's actions in favor of Master's interests in the National Congress. According to Veja, Vorcaro would have made the statements during negotiations with authorities to close a plea deal.

"I repudiate, with all firmness, and with all indignation, the content of this matter. I have never received those amounts, or any other amounts, in Brazil or abroad, for any reason whatsoever. They are entirely false allegations, with the sole and apparent intention of dragging my name, my honor, my reputation through the mud", said Alcolumbre at the beginning of this Tuesday's plenary session.

Alcolumbre also mentioned in his speech that, if the information conveyed by Veja has no connection with the contents of Vorcaro's plea bargain proposal, investigations carried out by the Federal Police or defense demonstrations, he will legally oppose the accusations conveyed last week.

"If this fact is not even included in a collaboration agreement, if it has not been said by the collaborator, by his defense or by the authority responsible for conducting this procedure, then we will be facing a much more serious situation. Because we will not only be facing a false accusation against the president of the Federal Senate. We will be facing the invention of a non-existent fact and the attempt to attribute this fact to an official procedure to give it the appearance of truth", he stated.

"Who is interested in slandering the president of the National Congress? Who benefits from trying to use the press to intimidate the head of the Legislative Branch?", added the senator.

After the Legislative President's demonstration at the beginning of the plenary session, government, centrist and opposition senators spent around an hour offering solidarity to the President of the House. Parliamentarians, however, avoided citing pressure to open CPIs (Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry) to investigate the Banco Master case.

Any accusation, regardless of who it is, must have a minimum evidentiary basis, especially when this accusation is against a public figure and above all the president of the National Congress", said the government leader in Congress, Randolfe Rodrigues (PL-AP).

Former president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG) defined the statements presented by Veja as something "mafia" and "gangsterism".

"It constitutes an offense, a coercion, an embarrassment, the search for criminalization of a head of power, of a president of the Senate, who for some reason is being coerced based on a mafia expedient, of gangsterism, of someone who invents a fact and that embarrasses an entire institution, embarrasses the figure of a senator", he said.

Senator Esperidião Amin (PP-SC) said that the accusations were attacks against the National Congress.

"Who negotiates a plea bargain? It is the Federal Police and the Federal Public Ministry, under the auspices of the Judiciary. These are the compartments where the biggest criticisms of the Brazilian Congress's performance in a CPI come from. It was from there that this one also came from, which was not the first statement against a parliamentarian. In other words, nothing about the judge comes out of this plea. Nothing comes out about businessmen, the target is Congress", he stated.

The government leader in the Senate, Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), also spoke in plenary in repudiation of the material exposed by Veja. The PT senator is cited as one of the protagonists of the report in relation to the Credcesta program - or Cesta do Povo - a state-owned supermarket chain created by Antônio Carlos Magalhães in 1979, inherited by the PT governments in Bahia and which generated expenses for the State.

"My lawyer is already preparing a document to sue the magazine. We are facing an absurdity", he said.

The report reinforces the relationship between PT da Bahia and businessman Augusto Lima, named as a former partner of Daniel Vorcaro at the beginning of Banco Master. According to the PT members' narrative, Lima would have the appropriate profile for the acquisition of the Credcesta network as it already has experience with benefits cards, in addition to having financial resources.

*Under the supervision of Mayara da Paz

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Source: CNN