The president of the court that judges Luis Bárcenas by box b of the Popular Party (PP) takes a break at twelve noon "to have a coffee", and adds:
—Mr. Rajoy will want to go to the bathroom ...
It is a slip, logically.
He wanted to say "Mr. Bárcenas", but it is not surprising that the subconscious has betrayed him.
During the last hour and a half, the ex-treasurer of the PP has explained in great detail - names, dates, amounts and the most common tricks - the illegal financing of the PP from the times of Manuel Fraga to those of Mariano Rajoy, whom he claims to have delivered by hand 25,000 euros from one of the last games of black money.
Mysteries, truths and crimes of the 'Bárcenas papers'
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The most forceful phrases of the statement of Bárcenas
Bárcenas attributes to Cascos the order to systematize the box b and the black bonuses
Without a mask, with his glasses close to the tip of his nose, his elbows resting on the table and his hands clasped, Luis Bárcenas recounts with great serenity, and without avoiding at any time his responsibility, the way in which the PP financed illegally from 1990 to 2008.
He also does it of his own free will, without even needing the questions of the prosecutor Antonio Romeral, who at times seems interested in questioning at this point the veracity of the papers provided by Bárcenas, some documents that the former treasurer himself once again recognizes as authentic this Monday. , which EL PAÍS published on February 2 and 3, 2013 and which the Supreme Court also declared valid in October 2020 when it confirmed the judgment of the
Gürtel case
handed down by the National High Court.
But despite the prosecutor's strange strategy, Bárcenas has come to sing.
And more than a new cante, what the former treasurer interprets is an anthology of the tricks used by the leadership of the PP, whether it was in the opposition or in power, to cover with black money what it could not afford with legal funds.
What counts in just three hours of declaration, once cleaned of dust and straw and placed in a row, is tremendous.
He says that the method of double financing of the party - one legal and the other in black - was inaugurated when Francisco Álvarez Cascos was secretary general of the PP (1989-1999), and that when a new secretary general arrived, the then treasurer, Álvaro Lapuerta , met with him, indicated the uses and customs and gave him the first envelopes of money from businessmen who wanted to "pay" the land while waiting for favorable deals.
Bárcenas assures that, from Álvarez Cascos to Dolores de Cospedal, all the important figures of the party — Rodrigo Rato, Jaime Mayor Oreja, Mariano Rajoy, Javier Arenas… - accepted without question the envelopes in "payment of salaries or salary supplements."
The explanation that Bárcenas gives to the fact that these prominent politicians received bonuses whether they were in the opposition or in the Government is very curious.
He says that when they were simple deputies, they received a legal bonus from the party for the many hours they spent at the headquarters in Genoa preparing the assault on power.
But when they already won in 1996 and they all went to form part of the first government of José María Aznar, “the incompatibility law prevented them from receiving double remuneration and, as that meant a reduction in income, the instruction was given [from the party leadership] that they had to be supplemented with off-the-books funds, ”which is the fine way of calling black money.
It is one thing to die for the country and another to lose money.
Bárcenas is launched, and although the prosecutor seems to have come to sleep the game, there is no way to stop it.
Despite the fact that the aftermath of the years and the jail are already noticeable in his appearance, who had retained and this Monday has come to settle accounts.
To Esperanza Aguirre, who a few days ago went to the televisions to show his living room and leave him as a liar, he sends a message: he has already found the evidence that he and Lapuerta, may he rest in peace, handed him 60,000 constant euros and sonorous from a builder.
And then, by way of icing, tells a scene that, if true, launches an accusation against the PP so serious that even Pablo Casado would have to consider the vote of silence.
He explains that, after the papers with the fraudulent accounting were published, a lawyer close to the party offered him 500,000 euros in black to make other papers “but varying the concepts and amounts to make them public and thus create confusion as to which were the good ones. and which are the bad ones… ”.
There was no deal.
Bárcenas wanted double.
Good and bad papers, real and false documents, truth and lies ... There is a phrase that, like a loose cannon, hits the target without intending to and perfectly sums up the last 20 years of the history of the PP.
The prosecutor Romeral and the former treasurer were talking - calling it an interrogation would be an exaggeration - about the reform of the headquarters of Genoa 13, when Bárcenas explains that the PP treasury prepared two types of documents, "some of truth and others of falsehood", because "You had to adjust the budget, which was not real, to what it really cost."
And that's when, trying to explain the obvious, Bárcenas stumblingly builds a sentence that is a sentence:
—What was paid in black was the difference between the real thing and the fake thing.
It will be difficult for such a legacy, politically and economically, to be redeemed with a move.
The former treasurer insists on accusing Aguirre
Luis Bárcenas took advantage this Monday of the interrogation to which the anti-corruption prosecutor subjected him to insist on an aspect that a few days ago he told before the judge of the 'Punic case', Manuel García-Castellón: that he himself witnessed how his then boss as treasurer of the Popular Party, Álvaro Lapuerta, in 2007 gave an envelope with 60,000 euros to who was, at the time, leader of the PP in Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre.
The money, according to Bárcenas, had been brought by a builder to irregularly finance Aguirre's campaign for the regional elections that year.
After that testimony, the former president of Madrid launched an offensive of public statements and writings before the judge to deny the accusation of the former treasurer.
This Monday, Bárcenas reiterated his accusations during the trial of box b.
To do this, he detailed the alleged personal link between Aguirre and the builder - whom the leader of the PP in Madrid denied knowing - through Sigfrido Herráez, a party member closely related to the then president, who was married to the businessman's daughter and whose wedding she attended.