We had the Patriotic Police of the government. Now we can add The Patriotic Treasury. The first executed its operations to the greatest glory of the president, Mariano Rajoy, to attack the rivals of the Popular Party. The second had a more restricted area and was in charge of favoring companies that hired and financed the law firm founded by Cristóbal Montoro before returning to the government as Minister of Finance, according to the judicial investigation that has just been known. Jorge Fernández Díaz, Minister of Interior, will go to trial for the first case in 2026, along with his Secretary of State, Francisco Martínez.
The expectations are worrisome for Montoro, who could also end up on the bench of the accused, although he would be much better accompanied. Not only is the former minister charged, but also nine high positions of his ministry appear with the same condition.
Politics requires certain doses of cynicism to exercise it. It is not convenient to pass, but it is also convenient to take care of your mental health if it is your obligation to defend your party or accuse the opposite. Rajoy is already a little back of everything and does not mind making a demonstration that breaks the scales. In the recent PP Congress, he took the stage to demonstrate how annoying he is for the last scandals of the Government of Pedro Sánchez. Mariano was not the funny or the brand reader. Mariano was the indignant.
Rajoy did not hide his perplexity: “We have seen everything. Things we couldn't even imagine. Unthinkable things. Inconceivable. Crazy. Things that had never occurred.” It had never been seen that a whole dome of commissioners was able to manufacture false evidence in investigations behind the backs of the judicial authority. A company had never been seen to get a ministry to make a tailored suit in the General State Budgets. As Mariano would say, inconceivable. And all that happened with his government.
One of the arguments used by Pedro Sánchez in his appearance of the Congress of July 9 was to affirm that the PP was in a hurry to get to power, because he will have to face next year a whole series of judicial causes in which ancient leaders are involved. Some of these cases exist, although it seemed more an example of confusing desires with reality. Something had to say when going to the offensive.
It will be because in politics the sun always comes out after the storm, but surely Sanchez was not expected that a judicial case of which the track had almost been lost because it was declared secret came out in his rescue as soon. The 'and you are most effective when you mean very old judicial investigations. If it is something that is taking place in real time, the loot is more succulent.
The always hyperactive Popular Party was remote to respond to the allegations on Montoro's account. Or maybe it were that the spokesmen who went out to comment and answer questions are not part of their most skilled squad in those lides. Elías Bendodo said that Montoro “has no labor relationship” with “the current PP.” Whenever an alleged corrupt comes out of the theory that the parties do not have to answer about the past. It is as if these illegal practices had occurred in another era era and had been made by people who are unknown to them.
The Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, of the PP, Juan Bravo, tried to be more imaginative to gain points. “If we do a broad analysis, I believe that you are not hearing about bite, prostitutes, friends placement, chairs that do not exist,” said on Antena 3. After all, you are only accused of changing laws or writing them with the intention of favoring a private company related to the then Minister of Finance. The gas companies came “to write the legal (government) texts, all through the payment of important disbursements,” says the summary. What is compared to the intrinsic severity of a dust paid with money?
In the vitaminized and supermineralized right, many tears were not spilled in Montoro, one of his less favorite ministers, even despised by ultraliberals. The reason is well known. The Minister of Finance violated the PP promises and uploaded taxes when Rajoy came to power. The first one who scammed those who had believed those intentions in the middle of a brutal financial crisis that affected the public debt and the risk premium was obviously Rajoy. The online was mostly Montoro, because it was noted that he enjoyed these decisions or on the opportunities he had to explain them. Hence some of his photos that became Mr. Burns Memes.
With Montoro and taxes, there were certainly unusual moments. Shortly after arriving at the ministry, the minister granted an interview in which he explained not only that the VAT was not going to rise, but why this increase would be a counterproductive measure. It did not spend much time until it did precisely what could not be done. To the right it bothered him more than the Income Tax and that he was not in a hurry to reduce it when the crisis began to attenuate.
Rajoy's PP entered the government as this party always appears after winning elections. Like a train without brakes. Montoro took his time to accelerate to the point that he threatened in public to entire groups – actors, journalists, gatherings … – with launching a battalion of armed tax inspectors to their teeth. Some of those threats were personalized. That was within the section of “things that had never occurred.”
Carlos Alsina told Thursday what happened when Montoro summoned those responsible for the wave zero program he directed. I was very angry with the comments he had heard about his management and at a given time He went directly to threats: “I am the Minister of Finance, do you understand? I decide the VAT of the digital book and I do not think that your group's shareholders like to upload it. Keep in mind.” An ABC journalist He was investigated by the Treasury, Including several family members, for publishing several articles that reflected the favors that the Ministry had lent to the old Montoro buffet.
That Montoro who was picturesque and even a guason in press conferences and parliamentary appearances was transformed into a fiscal version of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez. The PP does not stop holding that there have never been as many attacks on freedom of expression before the current government of Sánchez. They may continue to say it from now on because they will claim that they do not know anyone who is called Montoro. It would be “crazy” to be asked about him, for using Rajoy's language.
