Argentina's Spygate: 38 former Macri officials indicted

[sandensea]

Indictments were issued in Argentine federal court against 38 officials in former President Mauricio Macri's 2015-19 administration for their roles in a wide-reaching surveillance operation against Macri's critics.

Those indicted by Federal Judge Juan Pablo Augé include former Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) head Gustavo Arribas, former deputy AFI head Silvia Majdalani, former Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF) head Emiliano Blanco, and Macri's secretary Susana Martinengo.

The scheme, carried out between 2016 and 2019, involved over 500 targets of warrantless surveillance and over $80 million in undeclared expenses by an AFI team known as the "Super Mario Bros."

Judge Augé described them as "permanent association in accordance with the so-called 'cycle intelligence' - created with the purpose of obtaining information on an undetermined number of people by the mere fact of their private actions, or political opinions, or of adhesion or belonging to partisan, social, labor or community organizations."

"All actions expressly punished by the National Intelligence Law," Augé noted.

Known targets - believed to be as many as 1,500 - thus far include at least 403 journalists, 58 businesspeople, 28 academics, 20 federal lawmakers, 2 former presidents - as well as Macri's sister Florencia and her family.

Macri, 62, denied re-election in 2019 amid the worst recession in two decades, has been the focus of numerous scandals involving alleged warrantless wiretapping of both public figures and relatives - including another sister, the late Sandra Macri (resulting in his 2009 indictment).

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.pagina12.com.ar/324885-espionaje-macrista-procesaron-a-las-cupulas-de-la-afi-y-el-s

Gustavo Arribas, head of intelligence under former Argentine President Mauricio Macri (his former business partner); and Arribas' deputy (and operational head of intelligence), Silvia Majdalani.

The two are the most prominent of some 38 former Macri officials indicted today as past of a probe into extensive - and warrantless - surveillance against both opponents and supporters of Macri's 2015-19 tenure.

An effort by Macri allies in the judiciary to transfer the case to Buenos Aires' right-wing dominated Comodoro Py federal courthouse was rebuffed on Thursday by an appeals court.

[Judi Lynn]

1. The enormity of Macri's efforts against his imagined enemies is horrendous. Image 8 years in power!

Had he been re-elected he would have destroyed the country, exactly like his vicious aly, Trump.

It's wonderful the fascist right's attempts to send the next portion of the prosecution of these scheming, malignant operatives to a Macri-friendly court was blocked.

All hope flows toward a just outcome for the people of Argentina, Macri's prey, and host, and a complete defeat of over 4 years of malice, disrespect, treachery, and predation.

The sheer numbers of his operatives is shocking.

Thank you, so much, sandensea.

[sandensea]

2. The whole thing, we now know, was very Nixonian - both in its brazeness, as in its level of paranoia

Evidence shows that Macri was spying not only on opponents, critics, and suspected critics - but also on his own close allies.

Among them the Governor of Buenos Aires Province at the time, María Eugenia Vidal (Miss Opus Dei, you'll recall); Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta; Deputy Mayor Diego Santilli; and hard-right Congressman (and reputed Mosad asset) Waldo Wolff.

Why? Because Macri suspected them of gunning for his job (although the Wolff surveillance may have had to do with his Isreali contacts, which Macri was very keen on knowing more about).

In the end, of course, all his judges and all his spies couldn't put his re-election hopes back together again.

Not unlike what happened to his friend Trump: a victim of his own incompetence and authoritarian over-reach.

[Judi Lynn]

3. OMG. I looked for their images, and recalled all of them except for the last two.

Macri had some monstrously ambitious politicians working for him who looked as if they really WOULD do anything at all to get to their intended goals. Fiendish, driven, inhuman, and those are their more sociable qualities. They seem to have an unholy light in their eyes, too! Maniacs.

I had forgotten all about them once the threat had subsided when they were replaced.

He did have too many of these fiends around him for his own security, no doubt. Ha ha ha. They could have done him in, in a heart beat, with their collective level of ill will, and abilities, and ambition.

I did see in a photo of Santilli, that he actually did stay close to world leaders when they were in his orbit, as the photos of him with Angele Merkel, f'r instance. Clearly he operated very comfortably at that level.

The guy Waldo Wolff looks super hardened, and completely empty of human content. Yuk, he's a man people should avoid every time. What a creep. There was another similar hater of humanity, Yair Klein, who was active in Colombia for years. What a shame.

Looks as if people like them ALWAYS find huge welcome mats at the door of all hard-right, racist politicians who play extra dirty.

Thanks for the new names!