Brazil’s Supreme Court expands graft probe to ministers, government-allied politicians

Brazil’s Supreme Court has ordered corruption investigations against eight ministers and dozens of other top politicians in a broad measure that affects nearly a third of President Michel Temer’s cabinet and many of his political allies.

The top court said in a ruling on Tuesday that, altogether, 108 people would come under investigation.

The ruling came after studying more than 74 inquiries involving plea bargain deals and testimony from former and current executives with a major construction company, Odebrecht, which is the focus of a bribes-for-contracts scandal.

The list of names published by the official website of the Brazilian court Tuesday night included Presidential Chief of Staff Eliseu Padilha, Lower House Speaker Rodrigo Maia, Senate President Eunicio Oliveira, and the ministers of foreign affairs, agriculture and trade, among others.

Also under investigation would be the heads of the two key political parties in Temer’s coalition.

The Supreme Court also referred 201 probes to lower courts for judges there to decide whether the investigations should proceed. The cases included investigations against three former Brazilian presidents, namely Dilma Rousseff, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

The development came as Temer fights to survive an electoral court trial that could remove him from office for illegal campaign financing.

The Brazilian incumbent is also trying to pass harsh austerity measures and reforms through the Congress as polls indicate that his approval rating has nose-dived to as low as 10 percent.

Odebrecht and state oil giant Petrobras are at the center of a wide-ranging probe in Brazil involving bribes and inflated contracts at state corporations. The investigation has entangled dozens of high-level politicians and executives and has grown into the largest graft probe in Brazil’s history.

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The scandal has even taken regional dimensions, with justice systems in other Latin American states accusing local officials of taking bribes from the Brazilian construction giant.

Odebrecht has admitted to paying nearly 800 million dollars in bribes across Latin America.

The investigations will bring “a tsunami” to Brazilian politics, according to professor of political science Claudio Couto at Fundacao Getulio Vargas, a Sao Paulo-based university and think tank.

“Every party and every state has someone there. Top congressional leaders of both houses are involved. This is proof that corruption in Brazil is systemic and there is a huge potential for this to disorganize the whole administration as of tomorrow,” Couto said.

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