Brazilians danced in the streets, chanting and even burning their president in effigy on Sunday to celebrate the House of Representatives’ vote to impeach leftist head of state Dilma Rousseff.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff issued a defiant statement Tuesday, asserting that an investigation implicating her in a billion-dollar corruption scandal is an attempt at a coup d’etat and that she will “never resign” from her post, despite millions of Brazilians taking to the streets to demand she step down.
Less than an hour after President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil swore her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, into a position as her new chief of staff, a federal court issued an injunction annulling the appointment, suggesting Rousseff’s decision may amount to a crime.
The judge presiding over a massive corruption probe into Brazil’s state-run oil corporation has released audio of wiretaps in which President Dilma Rousseff is heard telling her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, that she has a plan in place to grant him government immunity should prosecutors build a strong enough case to send him to jail on corruption charges.
Brazil’s government is expected to grant former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a position as minister alongside President Dilma Rousseff, a move many suspect is intended to shield da Silva from facing money laundering charges in federal court.
Brazilian federal law enforcement officials detained former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for nearly four hours to interrogate him on a possible role in the billion-dollar corruption scandal plaguing Petrobras, the nation’s state-run oil corporation.
