“I’m not afraid to be told that I violated confidentiality,” Antonio Lobo Xavier said Tuesday night on CNN Portugal, where he responded to Antonio Costa with two goals. “Defending my honor and serving the truth.” At issue is the Prime Minister’s continued refusal to confirm or deny whether the President of the Republic summoned the Attorney General of the Republic to Belém at his suggestion, as the newspapers wrote, publicly assumed by the President and confirmed by Lobo Xavier. .
On CNN, the State Counselor classified this information as “fact.” He explained why he wanted to talk. “The Prime Minister had two options: denial or confessionIt was he who was the reason for “a completely natural fact – asking PR to speak to the PGR, which is not serious or a problem at all,” he said. But he concluded that the Prime Minister “preferred to deepen the notorious climate of intrigue and ambiguity against the President of the Republic.” .
Using what he called a “time tape,” Antonio Lobo . “Between protecting the precaution that the Prime Minister invokes (…) to find a scapegoat for forgetting the essence, or to reveal the truth,” the State Counselor says he chooses the latter. To align with your vision of what respect for institutions should be.
“I was not the one who brought this matter up, and I was not the one who said what happened in the State Council“, accusing the Prime Minister of being the one who publicly “hinted” that what happened was related to that body and was therefore a secret.
“Sometimes, the skill is so great that it gets in the way,” quips the Portuguese CNN commentator, who accuses the Prime Minister of choosing to attack the President – “the only authority that is not at stake in the current circumstances” A country facing “early elections, the dismissal of a government, and the dissolution of Parliament And investigations by the Public Prosecution, friends and ministers…”
Lobo . If state information has been classified for more than 30 years, it is exceptionally possible for the president to decide to make it public.
Expresso reported on the 10th of this month that it was the Prime Minister who suggested to the President to call the PGR. Costa wanted to obtain more data to evaluate the investigation that was ongoing on Tuesday the 7th of this month and which had already led to the arrest of Vitor Escaría and Diogo Lacerda Machado. As Expresso newspaper also reported on the 17th, in this conversation the Prime Minister presented the scenario of dismissal if he felt that his continuation in office might harm the investigation or the defense of figures close to him.
However, on the afternoon of the 16th, in Guinea-Bissau, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was asked about the matter, and he replied: “which, The Prime Minister has already made it clear He asked me to ask the Attorney General of the Republic to hold a meeting. “More than that I cannot say.” But Costa said on Saturday that it had never occurred to him to talk about the matter publicly. “You have to ask the President of the Republic about the general comment I made. I can’t think of anything,” he answered reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the National Committee of the Socialist Party. This Monday, in Germany, he once again refused to answer the question of whether he had suggested to Marcelo to contact the PGR or not, putting the controversy solely at the level of who violated the rules of confidentiality or not.
Chiga came on Tuesday to appeal to the President of the Republic to publish the minutes of the 10th Council of State, with the Prime Minister eventually telling third parties that it was he who asked Marcelo to listen to Lucilia Gago and Liberal initiativeHe sent a question to the Prime Minister asking if this was the case.
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