Bolaños distances himself from the appointment of Begoña Gómez's advisor who is investigating Judge Peinado.

MadridJuan Carlos Peinado has returned to Moncloa Palace seven and a half months later. This time, the second time, it was to take a statement from Félix Bolaños as a witness in the investigation against Begoña Gómez. The judge of Madrid's 41st Court of Instruction had already visited the palace at the end of July to question Pedro Sánchez. who invoked his right not to testify due to his personal connection to the person under investigation, who is his wife. The Minister of the Presidency, Justice, and Parliamentary Relations could not hide behind this in the face-to-face meeting he held with Peinado this Wednesday morning, responding for over two hours. In his statement, Bolaños distanced himself from the hiring of Cristina Álvarez, Gómez's advisor also under investigation, whom the investigating judge in the case has targeted as a possible embezzlement.

According to legal sources cited by Efe, Bolaños explained that he did not participate in this appointment nor was he Álvarez's boss, but he guaranteed that the hiring was made legally. He also recalled that this position of assistant to the wife of the chief executive has existed in all previous governments. What motivated Peinado to question Bolaños? The controversial judge's justification—a target of the Spanish government because it believes he is using this case to carry out "ruthless political persecution" against Sánchez—is precisely the suspicion that he was the one who authorized this hiring, in which the judge sees a possible crime of embezzlement due to the fact that Álvarez admitted to having sent emails related to the

"No public employee should be used for their own professional activity," said Marta Castro, the lawyer for the popular prosecution brought by Vox, upon leaving the hearing, supporting the same theory as Peinado. Speaking to the media, Castro said that after hearing Bolaños, it is clear that "we must continue investigating" to identify who initiated her appointment. "The matter will continue," she predicted, adding that Vox will request new witnesses. The PP has already taken the opportunity to demand Bolaños' resignation. "The photograph in front of Judge Peinado is the living image of his own failure and the degradation of Spanish democracy," said PP MP Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo from Congress.

The decision to summon Bolaños came just after former Deputy Secretary of the Presidency Alfredo González Gómez, in a statement as a witness at the end of February, which he had on the table when Sánchez arrived at the Moncloa in 2018, presented a list of between 80 and 90 names. Álvarez's name was included on that list, and he said he had not previously met him. He also failed to say who had given him the list and claimed that he simply raised the proposal to hire Gómez's advisor to his superior, who clarified, in response to questions from the public prosecutors, that it was precisely Bolaños when he was head of the General Secretariat of the Presidency between July 2018 and the same month of 2019. At that time, he was not yet a minister. This has served Peinado to deny Bolaños the possibility of testifying in writing, as stipulated by the criminal procedure law for members of the government. Peinado traveled to Moncloa Palace in an official car provided by the Spanish government. He himself was the one who requested it, because when he arrived in a vehicle not belonging to Moncloa to interrogate Sánchez, he was detained "for a period of time significantly longer than necessary to allow him access."

Fines for lawyers

On the same day that the investigating judge questioned Bolaños, another controversial decision came to light. Peinado imposed a €5,000 fine on Gómez's lawyer, former Socialist minister Antonio Camacho, for having made statements to the press after the declaration, as happened on December 18. "This is a violation of the right to defense by transmitting what should be kept secret." The judge also fined two of the popular accusations, Vox and Hazte Oír, €500, also for having made statements. The fine is lower because they made them after Camacho, which, in his opinion, "tempers the infraction."