The first vice-president of the government, María Jesús Montero, distanced herself from former minister José Luis Ábalos during her intervention in the investigative commission of the Senate of Koldo affair and assured that “we weren’t friends either” at the same time as he admitted that it was “once on his birthday.”
The Commission, which was held this Tuesday in the Senate, began with questions from UPN Senator María Mar Caballero to Montero and was suspended so that the Minister of Finance could go to Congress to vote.
At one point, the UPN senator referred to the celebration of the 60th birthday of José Luis Ábalos. “The family invited me, I haven’t seen Aldama, I don’t recognize him,” he said. When asked if her office was there, the vice president said she didn’t remember because it was “a long time ago, about three or four years ago.”
Thus, he clarified that “never” did he have a meeting, whether in person or online, with him and added that “in no case does any report from the UCO mention that I had a meeting with Mr. de Aldama”. Let us therefore consider that Aldama “lied during his appearance for a simple defense strategy before the judge”.
Furthermore, he defended that in his statements last week, what Aldama had said “was a series of lies directed against honorable people and specifically against my chief of staff.”
Montero considers this part of his defense strategy and suggested that “It is no coincidence that he designated the Ministry of Finance because it was the tax authorities who started the investigations” which led Aldama to prison.
Montero showed all his confidence by saying that puts “hand on fire” by his chief of staff, Carlos Moreno, who he said “was a magnificent civil servant.”
Likewise, he assured that he had the same confidence in the organizational secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán. He explained that he has “a magnificent relationship” with him, since they both belong to the party leadership. Furthermore, he added that beyond that, he maintains “a personal relationship, complicity and friendship” with him.
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