Suspended
President Dilma Rousseff took the stand Monday morning in her
impeachment trial, and in measured but blunt language denied any
criminal wrongdoing in handling the country's budget, and decried the
effort to remove her from office as a "coup" orchestrated
by Brazilian politicians to stop a federal investigation of
allegations of bribery and influence-peddling.
“I am here
to look directly in your eyes to say with serenity that I have
nothing to hide,” Rousseff said during her half-hour statement. “I
did not commit the crimes that I am accused of.”
"I have
never enriched myself with public funds, and I have never manipulated
budgets to benefit myself," she said. "I have acted
honestly, and I will now be tried for crimes I have not committed."
Rousseff
argued that it is not "irony" but "deliberate"
that the leaders of the impeachment bid — particularly former
speaker of the lower house Eduardo Cunha — are deeply embroiled in
corruption charges while there is no evidence to support any criminal
charges against her.
She argued
that she has "paid a heavy price" for working, along with
her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to create the "necessary
conditions" for state corruption to be thoroughly and
independently investigated, without government interference. She also
alluded to wiretap recordings leaked in the weeks after her
suspension in May that revealed that high-level opposition figures
had schemed to halt corruption investigations against them and their
allies through ousting Rousseff from office. She claimed that these
"poweful forces" and political interests "architected
(her) destitution."
"We are
one step away from a serious institutional rupture," she said.
"We are one step away from a real coup d'etat."
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