This is how the PP cooked, beyond corruption
1. While here we are eating the 'mona' cake, in Madrid they are working. The third term of the school year begins with one of those news items that will have repercussions. This Monday, the trial for Operation Kitchen begins at the National Court. The case will once again place the Popular Party at the epicenter of the mire. And this is not just a case of corruption. It is much more than that. It is being investigated whether the party in power used the State to cover up its own corruption. The indications seem clear, but justice, in Spain, can always come out with a broken candle.
2. The name Kitchen, with which this cesspool was christened, could not have been more fitting. The kitchen as a perfect metaphor for the secret place where recipes are cooked in hiding. These dirty maneuvers, orchestrated outside of any judicial control, had the objective of making disappear evidence that would demonstrate that the 'B' fund was the daily bread in the distribution of black money within the PP. That is why the party's former treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, was spied on. That is why his driver was bought to become an informant who would reveal confidential information. That is why documents were stolen that could compromise, even further, those in charge at the headquarters on Génova street for the entire Gürtel scheme and other derivatives of public money into the pockets of a few.
3. The patriotic police, with dictatorial overtones and the addictive vice of acting outside the law, served to try to bring down the "Procés", to mess with "podemites", and to save the ruling party from its corruption scandals. The modus operandi of those dark years was always the same: use of secret funds, actions that escaped any judicial control, and the common denominator of using police officers who, stealthily and for the alleged good of the State, did what was necessary. "Whoever can do it, let them do it" by Aznar was a clear instruction. And their Villarejos, Eugenio Pinos, and Martín Blases of the moment executed the orders they received, with pleasure and eagerness. Who was in charge? The main defendants in the Kitchen case are Jorge Fernández Díaz, who was then the Minister of the Interior, and Francisco Martínez, his right-hand man. The gentleman from Barcelona, who believed himself untouchable before and after being minister, who blessed Operation Catalonia, who boasted of having destroyed Catalan healthcare and who knew how to make the Prosecutor's Office "fine-tune" sensitive matters, will on this Easter Monday sit on the accused's bench for Operation Kitchen. Will we finally know, after this trial, what deaths were in the pantry of the Spanish secret services? For now, those who are getting away with it are Mariano Rajoy and María Dolores de Cospedal. They are not indicted by the justice system, even though journalistic investigations point to them very clearly. We have read messages from Francisco Martínez talking about informing "the President". We have heard conversations between De Cospedal and Villarejo that leave little room for interpretation. But both will only go to trial as witnesses.
4. In any case, the corruption in the Gürtel case forced Rajoy's PP out of Moncloa and allowed Pedro Sánchez to become president. Now the Kitchen trial could make the PP's return to power even more difficult. And I can only think of one thing worse: the even greater dependence that an weakened People's Party will have on Vox. They will have to deal with it themselves. The trial will last until June. The verdict will be delayed. For now, we will have to make do with the smell of it. While we here eat our Easter cake, in Madrid they will start breaking eggs.
