Chamber of Deputies approves removal of deputy involved in Car Wash

Members of the Chamber of Deputies approved today (Dec 10) the removal of Deputy André Vargas by 367 votes to one, with six abstentions. The number of votes necessary for Vargas's removal was 257.

At the plenary session—the last stage in Vargas's process of removal—members of the Chamber  decided to penalize him for his involvement with foreign currency dealer Alberto Youssef, arrested by the Federal Police as part of Operation Car Wash for his participation in a money laundering scheme. The deputy is being charged with acting as middleman at the Ministry of Health in contracts for the dealer.

Vargas neither attended the session nor sent a legal representative in his defense. In a last attempt to postpone the vote, he produced, on Tuesday evening (9), a medical certificate, rejected by the Chamber, according to which he was recovering from a dental surgery.

In May this year, Vargas was informed his process of removal from office had started. The deadlines set by the Chamber were strategically extended by the deputy several times, as reports the rapporteur in the case under the Ethics Committee, Deputy Júlio Delgado. The request for the ouster was finally approved in August unanimously, at the Council, by 11 votes.

Vargas is just one of the congressmen who took part in the money embezzlement ring led by Youssef. In his speech at Congress, Paulo Roberto Costa, former supply director at Petrobras, one of the companies affected by the illicit doings, said that new names are to be disclosed in the next stage of the operation, launched by the Federal Police.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira