Feijóo's PP now blames the party's lawyers for the appeal to acquit Bárcenas

The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in a file image.Cabalar (EFE)

The leadership of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP now blames the party's lawyers for having concealed that they had requested the acquittal of its former treasurer Luis Bárcenas, sentenced by the National Court to two years in prison for the reform of the Génova street headquarters with black money from box b.

The institutional deputy secretary of the popular party, Esteban González Pons, pointed this Tuesday directly at the lawyers as being responsible for the fact that the current leadership was not aware of the content of the appeal presented to the Supreme Court, with which the exoneration of the force was also sought. politician, sentenced as subsidiary civil liability.

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The leadership of the PP rectifies and orders to withdraw the appeal that requests the acquittal of Bárcenas: "We did not know him"

"If the lawyers had allowed the new management to read the appeal, surely it would not have been presented," González Pons highlighted in an interview on Antena 3. Feijóo's team, which ordered the allegations to be withdrawn on Monday after their content was made public , maintains that he never knew the arguments that were included in said document, signed by his lawyer, the experienced Jesús Santos, former prosecutor of the National High Court and member of the prestigious Baker McKenzie firm, one of the large international law firms.

“Political parties, in addition to defending themselves legally, must be able to explain it politically.

And what is inexplicable is better not to maintain it ”, added the Institutional Deputy Secretary this Tuesday.

Sources from the current leadership of the PP have specified to EL PAÍS that the problem was that the lawyers discussed the details of the appeal with the previous leadership —headed by Pablo Casado— and that, later, they considered it dismissed, despite the change in the presidency of the party and the political cost of a decision of this magnitude.

However, Casado's entourage maintains that he did not give the order to request the acquittal of Bárcenas either.

Faced with such a crossover of versions between the current heads of the formation and their predecessors, González Pons has come out to calm the waters.

“I would not say that Pablo Casado had done it.

If I can, I would say that it was presented in the interregnum period, when a PP leadership had already left and another PP leadership had not yet arrived”, he said in public this Tuesday, after on Monday he underlined that the appeal was wrote and appeared in the Casado stage.

Moreover, Feijóo's management privately repeats that there is "an

" where a member of the previous leadership "gave the OK" to the allegations.

The relationship with the office

In Feijóo's team they are very upset with Baker McKenzie's lawyers because they understand that, in any case, they should have been informed of the terms of the appeal.

According to management sources, they do not rule out even reviewing their business relationship with them.

For its part, this newspaper has tried unsuccessfully to collect the version of Jesús Santos.

Contacted by EL PAÍS, the firm has also preferred not to comment.

Santos, who left the National Court in 2012 to go to the private sector, and Baker McKenzie, have been working for the PP for years.

The lawyer has defended the popular in the causes of corruption that has brought them to the bench for the

.

Both during Rajoy's stage, and during Casado's, and now in Feijóo's.

In addition, he has represented María Dolores de Cospedal, former general secretary of the formation, during her indictment for Operation Kitchen, the police plot to spy on Bárcenas with the aim of seizing compromising documents for high-ranking conservative party officials.

Beyond his relationship with the firm, the PP also has its own internal legal team to coordinate all legal issues.

Moreover, among its main components is Alberto Durán, who was part of the organizing committee of the PP congress held last April, in which Feijóo was elected president.

Durán was tried for the destruction of Bárcenas' hard drives, but was acquitted in 2019.

The dates

Since the content of the resource was known, the PP of Feijóo has tried to throw balls and avoid any responsibility.

At first, Pons assured that this letter was written in November and was presented three days before the national training congress, which was held on April 1 and 2 of this year.

However, that version does not match the dates of the document itself.

Jesús Santos signed the appeal on April 19, 17 days after Feijóo's election as party president.

As for him, on April 20 his attorney signed it.

In the letter sent to the Supreme Court, the PP asked to acquit Bárcenas in order to avoid the penalty imposed on the formation: the payment of 123,669 euros as a subsidiary civil liability for the use of more than one million euros of the box b to pay the company Unifies the renovation of the Genoa headquarters.

Among other arguments, the popular ones used that the fiscal crime that has been attributed to the former treasurer would have already prescribed.

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