page_title: Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff
section_title: Rousseff's defense
hierarchical_section_title: Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff / Impeachment trial / Rousseff's defense
caption_attribution_description: English: Rousseff's lawyer, José Eduardo Cardozo in Impeachment Committee - 28 June 2016
context_page_description: The impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the 36th president of Brazil, began on 2 December 2015 with a petition for her impeachment being accepted by Eduardo Cunha, then president of the Chamber of Deputies, and continued into late 2016. Rousseff, then more than 12 months into her second four-year term, was charged with criminal administrative misconduct and disregard for the federal budget in violation of article 85, items V and VI of the Constitution of Brazil and the Fiscal Responsibility Law, article 36.
  The petition also accused Rousseff of criminal responsibility for failing to act on the scandal at the Brazilian national petroleum company, Petrobras, on account of allegations uncovered by the Operation Car Wash investigation, and for failing to distance herself from the suspects in that investigation. Rousseff was president of the Petrobras board of directors during the period covered by the investigation, and approved Petrobras' controversial acquisition of the Pasadena Refining System.
context_section_description: Rousseff had 20 days to present a preliminary written defense for the trial in the Senate and Rousseff's lawyer José Eduardo Cardozo did so on 1 June 2016.
  His 370-page filing said that the president had not committed the alleged crimes and that Rousseff's impeachment "was solely and exclusively aimed at ending Operation Car Wash." Cardozo submitted as evidence transcripts of a recorded telephone conversation between José Sérgio Machado, former president of Petrobras subsidiary Transpetro, and Senator Romero Jucá, an influential politician in the PMDB. Published by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, the conversation convinced Cardozo that the two were trying to prevent the investigation from widening, due to the risk to both of being caught up in it, and suggested that Rousseff's impeachment could have been part of an agreement aimed at preventing (and possibly later stopping) the Operation Car Wash investigations. Jucá's lawyer said that his client never thought to interfere in Operation Car Wash and that the dialogue did not suggest that he did. Jucá, who had been appointed Planning Minister by Temer, also denied ever attempting to obstruct the investigation, and after speaking with Temer on 23 May, said that he had no intention of resigning. However, the next day Jucá stepped down after eleven days in office.
caption: José Eduardo Cardozo, lawyer who represented Rousseff
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