All trials should have a Miguel Ángel Rodríguez. It would not be very good for the Administration of Justice, but it would offer spectacle, scandalous revelations with no more evidence than intuition and that in the best of cases, and rabid attacks on journalists who have done their job. Without a doubt, it would test the attention of the magistrates, who have to know that they can sneak it in at any moment. If you're not careful, Isabel Díaz Ayuso's chief of staff convinces you that Kennedy committed suicide while he is holding a smoking rifle.
Rodríguez, also known in the media as MAR, made in his statement at the attorney general's trial the serious accusations that Díaz Ayuso has been heard against the prosecutor's office and the Government for the investigation of the alleged tax crimes committed by his boyfriend. MAR offered an unusual repertoire in the Supreme Court. With total impudence, he based his statement on aspects as subjective as intuition or deduction. Other witnesses are forced to refer to facts and the presidents of the courts do not allow them to engage in comments or speculation. With MAR, the repertoire is much larger and more colorful.
First, the fantastic statement. Alberto González Amador, Ayuso's partner “is a Spaniard who has reached an agreement with the Treasury and which the Treasury has not allowed.” Like that, without further ado. The first is false (there was no time to complete that negotiation). The second, too.
That's called mapping out the perimeter of the conspiracy. Where do you get that the prosecutor was prevented from reaching an agreement with Amador's lawyer with “orders from above”? Very simple: “It is a logical deduction, because the prosecutor's office is a hierarchical body.” The latter is true in a formal sense. That does not mean that all prosecutors in Spain do not move a paper until the attorney general gives the go-ahead.
The State lawyer, who is defending Álvaro García Ortiz, later asked him on what he based his accusation regarding the false withdrawal of the agreement by orders of prosecutor Julián Salto's superiors, which he denied on Monday had existed. MAR's response was: “Article 2 of Law 50/1981. The status of the prosecutor is hierarchical.” He did not call them servants of sanchismo, but that was the intention. The kind of coups de effect that work on television talk shows and that seem to be reaching the trials.
It is not possible to know what effect this style will have on the judges who make up the court. Its president, Andrés Martínez Arrieta, did not see fit to remind Rodríguez that not all prosecutors are dedicated to carrying out government orders to persecute their political rivals.
On other occasions, he had no problem admitting that there was no need to pay much attention to him. “It is a message without support from any source. I am a journalist or politician. I am not a notary who needs a certificate,” he said. They read several of his messages on Twitter, including those that made false accusations. “A Twitter message is not a legal statement.” That will surprise all the judges and prosecutors who have investigated people for their tweets and alleged crimes of defamation or incitement to violence. But those from MAR should not be taken seriously, especially those who say “go ahead”.
Rodríguez also had time for one of his specialties from his years in the Aznar governments. Attacking the media and insulting journalists. In the investigation, he had lied when stating that eldiario.es had not contacted him before publishing the first information about González Amador's tax problems. At the trial, he opted for a more derisory interpretation, pointing out that he had confused this newspaper with El Plural. The journalist who had a WhatsApp exchange from 9:50 p.m. to 10:42 p.m. identified himself in writing as a member of this newsroom.
“These are not times to call anyone,” he said in one of those responses full of sarcasm that Judge Arrieta allowed him. As the State's lawyer responded with another ironic touch, the president called attention to García Ortiz's defender, but not to MAR.
“I have many things to do before attending to a leftist journalist, of an activist nature. They tend to be aggressive,” he commented. It hurts Rodríguez that it was this newspaper that broke the news that he and his boss thought would not come to light, that the Tax Agency had discovered that Amador owed him 350,000 euros and that he had brought the facts to the attention of the prosecutor's office.
Then González Amador appeared, prepared to fulfill his role in the play, that of a man who has suffered what is not written. He described himself as a man who has been destroyed by the abject maneuvers of his partner's enemies, not as a man suspected of committing two tax crimes, to use the number his lawyer mentioned. “I became the confessed criminal of the kingdom of Spain,” he said, blaming the note from the Attorney General's Office and the information on the case. “The state attorney general had killed me.”
His lawyer, Carlos Neira, “told me that your right to defense was broken.” Among the audience, largely staff from the Attorney General's Office, murmurs of disapproval were heard at that moment and one person knocked on the bench on which he was sitting.
Amador couldn't stop and the temperature rose. He said that “the entire fiscal body is after me.” He was saying that he cannot have a fair trial in Spain. He finished it off with a crazy argument. “I have no doubt that I will be convicted.” Somehow, he has forgotten that it is the judges who hand down sentences in Spain, not the prosecutors.
His statement was over and the magistrate was preparing to call a ten-minute recess before calling the last witness. Amador hadn't had enough. He believed he had the right to a last argument, a kind of 'golden minute' like the debates of electoral campaigns. He started talking and, although it was irrelevant, he highlighted that he has spent 9,800 euros on lawyers to claim for the “legal work” of his house, where Ayuso lives, and that the City Council, condemned to assume the costs, has only paid him 4,000.
He continued complaining and came to the phrase that presumably he intended to make headlines and talk shows: “Either I leave Spain or I commit suicide.” Total drama. He did not specify whether the president of Madrid will accompany him in one of the two options. Judge Arrieta interrupted him to tell him that he did not recommend either of the two alternatives and that in any case he should consult with his lawyer. This last tip is always the most convenient.
The attorney general is the defendant in this trial. Amador was sending a clear message to the magistrates. He knows that if the attorney general is found guilty, the judicial proceedings against him will have to be dead and buried due to his defenselessness. That is the second part of this trial and also one of the reasons why it is being held.