The Supreme Court overrules Peinado and overturns Bolaños's indictment.

MadridThe Supreme Court has thrown to the ground the claim of the controversial judge Juan Carlos Peinado to investigate the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, in the Begoña Gómez case. The High Court on Tuesday rejected Peinado's request to charge Bolaños, which he referred to the Supreme Court, due to the fact that Bolaños has immunity from prosecution. The judge charged him with alleged crimes of embezzlement of public funds in the hiring of Gómez's assistant at the Moncloa Palace, Cristina Álvarez, and of being a perjury witness for the statement he made to her in which he denied any wrongdoing. The Supreme Court has not found any evidence of a crime in Bolaños' actions and emphasizes that in the letter Peinado sent it, there is an "absolute absence of any evidence that is minimally substantiated or even remotely plausible."

"Time always puts everything and everyone in their place," Bolaños celebrated in a message to X. The animosity between the Spanish government and Peinado is notorious and has reached the point that a year ago Sánchez, through the State Attorney's Office, unsuccessfully filed a complaint against the judge for malfeasance. For Moncloa, Peinado is investigating a "political case," and they see this motivation exemplified by the judge forcing both the president of the Spanish government and the Minister of the Presidency and Justice himself to testify in the case. With Bolaños, the judge has tried to go a step further by raising his accusation, which the Supreme Court has now thwarted. Three weeks ago, when Peinado sent the letter to the high court, Moncloa trusted that this corrective would arrive and that the Supreme Court would "restore order."

A prediction that has been confirmed. Given the lack of evidence against Bolaños, the Supreme Court's criminal division has agreed to dismiss Peinado's reasoned statement. The lack of basis for his accusations is not the Supreme Court's only warning to the trial judge. In its ruling, the high court also criticizes him for not consulting the Prosecutor's Office regarding the decision to request Bolaños' indictment. "This omission is unusual in the usual procedure in criminal jurisdiction, which advises the Prosecutor's Office to hold a hearing," which is "appropriate in rulings such as this," the Supreme Court says.

No evidence

Among the arguments with which the criminal court dismantles Peinado's story is the conclusion that, from the reasoned statement according to which she wanted to charge Bolaños, it cannot be concluded that Álvarez performed tasks unrelated to her function when she was hired as a personal advisor to the wife of the president of the Spanish government. Nor that Bolaños participated in her appointment. In the Bolaños' tense statement of more than two hours as a witness in Moncloa, where Peinado traveled, the minister distanced himself from this hiring, which took place in 2018, when he served as Secretary General of the Presidency. The judge based the suspicion about Bolaños on a previous statement as a witness for another official at the Moncloa Palace. On the table, when Sánchez first arrived at the Moncloa Palace, was a list of between 80 and 90 candidates to fill various positions. He clarified, in response to questions from the popular accusations, that it was precisely Bolaños. "It cannot imply an automatic and objective attribution of conduct involving misappropriation of public assets or an omission that allows another person to misappropriate them," the ruling states. He also stated that Bolaños was aware of the allegedly irregular conduct. In this case, it means that public funds were being used for a purpose for which they were not intended. That is to say, there must be a deliberate will to carry out this "deviation" of functions that the high court has not appreciated in Peinado's reasoned exposition

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