Brazil’s president denies spying on investigator

SAO PAULO — President Michel Temer is fighting new allegations that his administration turned Brazil’s spy services on a supreme court justice investigating him for corruption, the latest in a series of accusations weighing on his tenure.

In a story posted late Friday on its website, Veja magazine cites an anonymous presidential aide as saying Temer and his advisers asked the Brazilian Intelligence Agency to spy on Edson Fachin, the justice in charge of an investigation into whether Temer accepted bribes and endorsed buying the silence of a former lawmaker convicted of corruption.

According to Veja, Temer’s team is looking for a way to discredit Fachin — and thus sink the investigation.

Temer denied the accusation in a statement.

“The government does not use the public machine against Brazilian citizens, much less does it engage in any kind of action that doesn’t respect the strict dictates of the law,” the statement said.

The revelations came hours after the Supreme Electoral Tribunal cleared Temer’s 2014 campaign of charges that it received illegal financing. That decision was seen as giving Temer some breathing room, but the new accusations further constrain his ability to govern and reinvigorated calls for his resignation.

The campaign-finance case was filed by one of the losing parties shortly after the 2014 presidential election. It alleged that the ticket of President Dilma Rousseff and running-mate Temer, then the vice presidential candidate, gained an unfair advantage through illegal campaign contributions.

A guilty verdict by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal would have annulled the 2014 victory, thus stripping Temer of the rest of his mandate. It could also have made both Temer and Rousseff ineligible to take office for eight years. While Temer had vowed to appeal any conviction, it would have weakened his hand in a climate of corruption scandals and a public furious at politicians.

Carmen Lucia, the president of the supreme court, issued a scathing statement Saturday, calling the alleged spying a tactic of dictatorships.

“It is unacceptable to commit a serious crime against the Supreme Federal Tribunal, against democracy and against liberty, if the report of this illegal invasion into the life of one of [the court’s] members is confirmed,” she wrote.

Attorney General Rodrigo Janot said he learned of the accusation with “puzzlement.”

“If such an attack on the powers of the republic and the democratic state of law is confirmed, it would be one more unhappy episode in the grave democratic crisis that this country is going through,” he said in a statement Saturday.

Temer’s statement also reiterated that the government has never tried to constrain Operation Car Wash, the sprawling corruption investigation that has ensnared much of Brazil’s political elite and led to allegations against the president himself.

Last month, a recording emerged that prosecutors said captured Temer endorsing a plan to pay hush money to ex-House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, who is serving 15 years in prison for corruption and money laundering. Soon after, another bombshell emerged: that Temer was being investigated for taking bribes.

Janot is considering pressing charges against Temer for what Janot says is receiving bribes, as well as over the audio recording and over accusations Temer tried to obstruct the Car Wash investigation.

Temer is already seen by many Brazilians as illegitimate because he came to power after the impeachment and removal of Rousseff. The accusations of corruption against Temer have called into question whether he can finish out his term.

Temer’s approval rating is hovering around 9 percent, and he has a tenuous hold on his ruling coalition.

The main parties in Temer’s coalition have stuck with him so far, but there are reports of worry in the ranks that being associated with his government could be detrimental to re-election campaigns next year.

Temer claims he can deliver major overhauls of labor laws and the country’s pension system. While the overhauls are deeply unpopular among Brazilians, many economists say they are necessary to help pull Latin America’s largest nation from recession.