Since May 7, justice has been investigating the leak reported by Alberto González Amador, partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who admitted to having defrauded 350,000 euros after a commission of two million euros for the purchase and sale of masks . The case, focused until now on the exchange of messages between the prosecutors in charge of the case and their superiors, will now focus on Moncloa. A Supreme Court judge will question the leader of Madrid’s socialists, Juan Lobato, this Friday to find out how the email containing González Amador’s confession arrived in his hands.
Lobato will have to sit that day before Judge Ángel Hurtado and clarify which of the versions regarding obtaining this email is the real one. In addition, Lobato will have to provide the notarized document of the messages exchanged with Pilar Sánchez Acera, chief of staff of Óscar López, now Minister of Public Service and previously main advisor to Pedro Sánchez at Moncloa, and which are at The origin of It is derived from the case.
The Supreme Court, which referred the matter to the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid and opened an investigation against the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, and against the Attorney General of the Province of Madrid, had until now not followed the trail of the leak only from the public prosecutor’s office itself. A UCO report infers that it was the prosecution that leaked González Amador’s confession written by his lawyer (although it does not provide proof of this conclusion at the moment) to the media and calls for continue the investigation into García Ortiz. But an ABC report published Sunday evening broke new ground in the case.
The newspaper claims the email containing the confession ended up in Moncloa and was leaked from there. According to the information, this email comes from the prosecutor’s office, although the text does not indicate what this statement is based on. The newspaper reports that Pilar Sánchez Acera, then Oscar López’s chief of staff at Moncloa, sent the email to Lobato so he could display it that day during the Madrid Assembly session. Everything is reflected in an exchange of messages between Lobato and Sánchez Acera, of which the leader of the PSOE of Madrid was captured and taken to a notary to draw up a report, and to which ABC alludes.
So far, the version of Vocento’s newspaper and the one given by Lobato himself are the same, but they differ on this point: the newspaper claims that Lobato expressed doubts about the origin of this email and hesitated to use it. According to reports, Sánchez Acera told him that if he did not use the email, he would send it to El Plural for publication. The conversation took place early on Thursday, March 14. At 9:06 a.m., El Plural published a screenshot of the email, the contents of which had already been published by various media, such as Cadena Ser and elDiario.es.
Lobato’s version is different. The leader of the Madrid socialists assures that he had “the normal conversation before each plenary session” with Sánchez Acera, who is also part of the regional leadership of the PSOE in Madrid. Lobato says he asked where the email came from and Sánchez Acera responded that the media had it. “When I see it’s coming from the media and it’s being published, that’s when I normally use it,” Lobato says. Indeed, in his speech that day, Lobato exposed the mail to the Assembly.
During an appearance this Monday, Lobato was asked why he went to the notary with the messages: “The objective was to have accredited insurance which would guarantee that if they attacked us because they accused that the prosecution had given us information, that he was also clearly accredited. In other words, the prosecutor’s office does not give us any information about anything and that everything reaches Pilar and [Sánchez Acera] like me through the media.
This story leaves a gray area with two incompatible versions. On the one hand, that of ABC, which indicates that Sánchez Acera, a senior official of Moncloa, received this email through the prosecutor’s office and shared it with Lobato warning him that if he didn’t use it, he would leak it to the media. On the other hand, that of Lobato, who said that this email came from the media, that it had already been published and that he had a normal conversation with Sánchez Acera.
This discrepancy can only be clarified by the conversation that Lobato had with the notary: the times of the messages and their content, in particular the allusions to the publication of the email in the media – whether before or after Lobato received it. This is why Judge Ángel Hurtado affirmed it.
This media outlet contacted Lobato’s team to request these messages and the notarial deed that contains them. His team initially refused to share them, and Lobato later said during his appearance Monday that he did not keep a copy of the notarial deed.
A suspicion in the middle of war
The summons of Lobato as a witness before the Supreme Court caused an earthquake within the PSOE in Madrid this Monday. Some of its members believe that he went to the notary “thinking that in this way he would have protection” for a primary trial in which he could end up competing with Óscar López himself. The position of a good part of the PSM this Monday was that Lobato should resign because of the controversy he had caused and that he was not obliged to attend the Federal Congress in Seville which is being held this weekend .
This political conflict, until now quite hidden, led Lobato this Tuesday morning to make a decision. He urgently summoned the media to the Madrid Assembly early in the morning to establish his position in this war and respond to those demanding that he step down: “I am concerned about the lynching of some leaders of my party. If what I was told that morning was true, I don’t see what the problem is with proving the legal origin of these documents.”
And that’s when Lobato sowed suspicion today where yesterday there was a closed defense of Moncloa: “Looking at the reaction, it seems that in a certain way the veracity of what I was said was in doubt. “I don’t consider that to be wrong, because that would be quite serious.” That is to say: Lobato slips that perhaps this email did not reach Sánchez Acera from the media and that it could have had another “possibly irregular” origin. Lobato declined to answer questions after his appearance.
The war is now total. Lobato listened to the demands to resign and responded that he would not do so. That same Tuesday, the PSOE spokesperson at Madrid City Hall, former Minister of Industry Reyes Maroto, demanded that Lobato urgently convene an extraordinary meeting of the regional executive of his party and submit to a question of trust. The government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, demanded “more solid” explanations on the “delicate and serious” decisions adopted in recent weeks and that the PSOE Regional Executive Commission be convened as soon as possible.
The PSOE leadership is not publicly commenting on Lobato’s departure, although privately it considers him politically finished. “We cannot understand that a person would go to a notary to record a conversation with a colleague. Nobody can understand him,” say Ferraz sources, who add that the party leadership will not confront him openly.
“Federal leaders cannot and must do nothing. Three days before a Congress, it makes no sense to start a war, that’s my opinion. Another thing is what activists say. Federal leaders will do nothing. I don’t know the PSM,” adds a senior party official.
