Pedro Sánchez's brother, little brother, big brother, or dearest brother

The case against Pedro Sánchez's brother is one of those issues that has quickly led to a clash of parallel narratives in which, depending on who you read, David Sánchez seems to be a firm candidate for beatification or deserving of a spell in the cauldrons of Pere Botero. Let's look, for example, at this headline from El Mundo: “Key witness cornered the competition that the brother won”. Ah, the old superlative of suggested guilt! But, in this auction of evidence, La Razón raises the stakes and doubles the number of people condemning (the other) Sánchez: “Two witnesses support the evidence against David Sánchez about his workplace in Badajoz”. Who offers more? Did I hear three witnesses in the back row? No, but El Periódico proposes someone else to nail the brother to the cross: “The aspirant to David Sánchez's position says that ‘it was known who it was for’”. No one would bet much on the innocence of the accused, reading all these people who are tearing his story to shreds. But here comes El País who sees it very differently and, on its front page, tries to counter the adverse narratives with: “Civil servants defend that Sánchez obtained the position in a clean process”. 

We don't know for sure whether the position was obtained cleanly or not. However, it is a textbook case of lawfare

: tailor-made contracts are a common practice in the administration (and let's be frank: they are often made to consolidate professionals who have been absurdly hired as temporary workers for years and years). In any case, if this hiring comes to light almost a decade after the alleged irregular acts, it is because he is the president's brother. At the very least, there is a distortion of justice, always ready to be activated when politically convenient. The auction of guilt and innocence in the headlines that follow is merely a byproduct of all this.