Former state governor files for Vice-President Michel Temer's impeachment
Cid Gomes 
Former Ceará governor Cid Gomes filed a complaint against Vice-President Michel Temer with the Chamber of Deputies on Friday (Apr. 1st) over “impeachable offenses”. Temer is alleged to have engaged in “activities that constitute impeachable offenses and should be carefully considered” by the Chamber of Deputies.
Gomes wants the Chamber of Deputies to examine the complaints and direct the case for prosecution and trial by the Senate in case the vice-president is found to have been involved in wrongdoing.
Cid Gomes said his charges exclude the so-called fiscal backpedaling, accounting maneuvers that are invoked as the core of the impeachment case against Rousseff, some of which, Gomes notes, have been authorized by Michel Temer as the acting president, but are not impeachable offenses according to him. “What I hereby bring forward are complaints [of wrongdoing] directly implicating Michel Temer or the PMDB, a party chaired by him, and as such, he must be held to account,” said the former governor. According to him, the evidence implicating Temer is in “plea bargaining statements, testimonies, and mentions found in files belonging to suspects investigated under Operation Car Wash,” the probe into the Petrobras corruption scandal.
The former governor mentioned mobile messages exchanged between Léo Pinheiro, CEO of OAS construction company, and Deputy Eduardo Cunha, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, in which Cunha complained that Pinheiro made payments to Temer and “put off transfers to other leaders”. According to Gomes, Cunha reportedly complained that Léo Pinheiro made a $5 million cashdown payment to Michel Temer.
He went on to charge that a plea bargaining statement by Senator Delcídio do Amaral implicated Temer in an “ethanol purchasing scandal at BR Distribuidora [Petrobras's distribution subsidiary] and the appointment of Jorge Zelada [another Operation Car Wash convict] to head Petrobras's international division,” and pointed out that Amaral's testimony mentioned “improprieties involving the PMDB”, the party chaired by Michel Temer.
“I want [the vice-president] to be investigated. I request that this complaint be considered for further impeachment proceedings,” said Cid Gomes.
Temer's rebuttal
Vice-President Michel Temer strongly rejected the allegations, saying they are based in “old, groundless, misleading reports and misguided interpretations.”
In a press statement, Temer commended Operation Car Wash for paying “relevant services” to Brazil and said he was “convinced” that these corruption investigations are the beginning of an “overhaul of Brazil's political culture.” He also accused Cid Gomes of being brought in to “damage other people's reputations in a vile, gross way.”
According to the vice-president, photographs in which Cid Gomes appears beside Paulo Roberto Costa, a former Petrobras director who has been convicted as a result of Operation Car Wash, “illustrate [Gomes's] history” and are "definitive portraits of the real political leanings” of the former governor. “All this is nothing but an orchestrated plan to ruin the vice-president's standing” in the public eye, the note concluded.
Translated by Mayra Borges
Fonte: Former state governor files for Vice-President Michel Temer's impeachment
