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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) reports via Common Dreams

The current attempt to remove President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil bears many resemblances to the [Bill] Clinton impeachment episode. It is led by a group of politicians who seek to overturn the results of national elections and steer the nation in a different, right-wing direction; and the elected president has not committed an impeachable offense.

[...] Most importantly, a crime is missing; even Bill Clinton's enemies could at least come up with the alleged crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice. But Dilma Rousseff's impeachers have no such criminal violation to even allege. This was the conclusion[PDF] [the week of July 11 by] the federal prosecutor, Ivan Claudio Marx, who was assigned to investigate the offenses for which Dilma is about to stand trial in Brazil's Senate.

He determined that Dilma did not break the law in her handling of the public budget. The impeachment centers around her decision to delay payments to the state banks, which allowed the government to maintain the appearance of staying within a targeted fiscal balance in its accounts. Marx determined that this was not a crime, because it was not a "credit transaction" that would require congressional approval.

In a society where the rule of law is in effect, that would spell the end of the effort to remove the elected president. But press reports--inasmuch as they even bothered to report on the prosecutor's conclusion--seem to indicate that pro-impeachment forces are acting as though the law, and the prosecutor's statement, are irrelevant. They are pressing full steam ahead for the Senate to reverse the results of the October 2014 presidential elections. And as we now know from leaked transcripts of phone conversations, some of the leaders are doing it to prevent further investigation of their own alleged corruption.

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