The judge does not see any crime in Montoro receiving emails containing tax information from various politicians.
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| The judge does not see any crime in Montoro receiving emails containing tax information from various politicians. |
The judge considers that the former minister was "fully authorized" and "entitled" to receive this type of tax information, so it is not considered a crime of disclosure of secrets.
The Tarragona judge investigating an alleged corruption scheme in the Treasury during the PP era , accused of modifying laws to benefit companies in exchange for money , does not see any crime in the fact that former minister Cristóbal Montoro received emails from his team containing tax data on politicians from different parties.
In several rulings issued in June, the judge of Tarragona's investigating court number 2 maintained this, concluding that Montoro was "fully authorized" and "legitimate" to receive this kind of tax information. He also denied the right to appear as injured parties for former PP minister Rodrigo Rato and former Podemos leader Juan Carlos Monedero. In a case that had been kept secret since 2018, the judge has charged Montoro - Minister of Finance between 2000 and 2004 under José MarÃa Aznar and between 2011 and 2018 under Mariano Rajoy -, former senior officials, partners of the Equipo Económico law firm, founded by the former minister, and directors of several industrial gas manufacturing companies with the crimes of bribery , fraud, prevarication, influence peddling, prohibited negotiations , corruption in business and document falsification.
In custody, neither secret disclosure nor infidelity In contrast, the judge rejects the appearances of Rato and Monedero, who had requested to bring charges considering that they had been victims of the plot. Montoro received emails from his team containing their tax data, so the judge does not believe that the crimes of disclosure of secrets or breach of trust in the custody of documents have occurred in this case. The judge explains that in these cases, the information was transmitted by the then chief of staff to the minister, so "there was no disclosure to third parties," as the data was not made public.
In fact, the judge recalls that the Prosecutor's Office, when reviewing the case documentation, had already determined that neither the content nor the mere sending of these emails constituted a crime.
Regarding Monedero's case, for example, the judge emphasizes that the emails do not indicate that inspections were carried out "without justification" or that data that could affect his tax situation was "falsified or adulterated." Rather, the minister was only informed of the actions the Tax Agency was carrying out on the former Podemos leader.
The Minister of Finance "may know this data"
"It is true that some of the emails contain very specific information, although it should not be forgotten that the Minister of Finance is the highest authority of the Tax Agency (AEAT) and, therefore, may be aware of this information," the judge emphasized.
The judge explains in his ruling that, for a crime to be committed, the data would have to be confidential , and the people accessing it would not have to be authorized to do so.
In this case, he argues, the people who accessed or were aware of this tax data or the actions taken by the Tax Agency were the Minister of Finance and his chief of staff.
"If the Minister of Finance is responsible for the top management of the Secretariat of State that runs the AEAT, we must understand that the Minister of Finance is fully authorized to review the content of the AEAT's actions . Therefore, being informed about such actions is part of the functions assigned to him," the judge emphasizes.
In this regard, the judge admits that the tax data "is undoubtedly confidential, cannot be made public, and not just anyone can access it," but insists that, in this case, "the people who accessed it are legally authorized."
The judge went on to say, "We are confronted with a case of knowledge, since the information is made available to the minister via email, and he is entitled to access it." In a separate ruling, the judge also rejected the admission of a journalist who had published several articles revealing the Economic Team's business dealings and claimed to be a "victim" of Montoro. The judge maintains that based on the information available in the emails of ministry officials regarding his tax situation, it cannot be "inferred" that there was an attempt to silence him so that he would not publish new articles.
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