Minister orders probe into Rousseff's previously approved campaign accounting

Minister Gilmar Mendes, justice of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), ordered on Friday (Aug. 21) the Prosecutor General's Office (PGR) and the Federal Police to probe alleged crimes committed in the Workers' Party's (PT) 2014 presidential campaign.

The ruling concerns President Dilma Rousseff's re-election campaign. Even though the accounting had been approved by the electoral authorities in December last year, the minister requested that the alleged wrongdoings should be brought under new scrutiny.

According to Mendes, in its decision, the court did not take into consideration the amounts illicitly donated to political parties—transactions investigated under Operation Car Wash.

“It's important to highlight that, after the candidate and the party's accounts had been scrutinized, it was only in 2015, when probes into the alleged corruption scheme at Petrobras were launched, that the allegations arose that campaign donations had been used as a subterfuge for kickbacks,” the minister says.

In a statement, the head of the Secretary for Social Communication, Minister Edinho Silva, says that reports on “all contributions and expenditures from the 2014 campaign were submitted to the TSE, which, after a thorough inquest, approved the accounts unanimously.”

The Workers' Party declared in a note that “all donations received by the PT were carried out in strict compliance with legal obligations and were subsequently reported to the Electoral Court.”

*With additional reporting by Paulo Victor Chagas.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira