On Monday at noon, Spanish news outlets prioritized the statement of Luis Bárcenas in the trial for the Kitchen case.In La 1's Telediario, the news reported that the former treasurer of the PP had ordered the destruction of the recordings about the party's slush fund and that when he wrote "M.R." on his papers, he was referring to Mariano Rajoy. The trial chronicle concluded that from Bárcenas's statements it could be inferred that the PP leadership was aware of the slush fund accounting and that, therefore, "the spotlight is starting to turn towards Mariano Rajoy". Subsequently, the public television's news program incorporated the PSOE's reaction to the trial developments and those of the current PP.In Informativos Telecinco the approach was quite similar. They spoke of the deleted documentation as "compromised recordings" and highlighted that according to Bárcenas, Rajoy himself knew of the existence of the slush fund. They also included a response from the former treasurer in which he specified that the initials "M.R." in the treasurer's papers referred to Mariano Rajoy.On the other hand, on Antena 3 noticias Sandra Golpe's report incorporated a tone laden with skepticism and a touch of sarcasm that gave the news a blatant bias. To refer to the stolen or missing documentation, Golpe said “sensitive information”, but each time she pronounced “sensitive” she lowered her tone of voice and with surprise, attributing an imaginary or unreal dimension to the concept, as if what she was talking about was unheard of. Furthermore, when the presenter repeated what Bárcenas had said, she emphasized with a forced emphasis that it was he who said it, attributing a component of suspicion to his statements: “Luis Bárcenas says –he says today– that he recorded Rajoy talking about the PP's slush fund”. This affected "says today” added a circumstantial element to the statement, the fragility of a last-minute occurrence. “The recordings included –he says– audios of Mariano Rajoy”. The "he says" was again pronounced with a certain disdain, reducing it to the category of an unconvincing version. To top it all off, Antena 3's report did not at any point echo one of the aspects that the rest of the news programs highlighted even in their headlines. It was the statement where Bárcenas specified that the initials "M.R." that he had written in the papers of the parallel accounting corresponded to the initials of Mariano Rajoy.Sandra Golpe's theatrical ability to craft a double reading, a subtext, in the news from her tone of voice and facial expressions would be worthy of a Goya. While on paper the information may have a relative appearance of journalistic neutrality, the singsong, the intensity, the micro-expressions, and the slight shoulder movements would be worthy of a doctoral thesis on subliminal communication.

Operation Kitchen was a conspiracy mounted from within the State itself with the PP government to prevent the Bárcenas case and the scandal over the illegal financing of the Popular Party from splashing its main leaders, especially Mariano Rajoy. And it must be said that after hearing Bárcenas himself in court this Monday, it seems that the operation achieved its main objective, which was to save Rajoy. The former PP treasurer explained that he recorded a conversation with him in which he handed over a certain amount of money and a paper with the "B" accounts. But this audio has never seen the light of day. Why? Well, because the agents of the so-called "patriotic police" were responsible for erasing any trace of it.

This week, two trials are set to begin in Madrid that will undoubtedly have a significant impact on Spanish politics. This Monday, the trial for the Kitchen case kicks off at the National High Court, and on Tuesday, the Supreme Court will try the former minister and former organization secretary of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos, for the first case affecting him: an alleged scheme to collect commissions for selling masks to various state institutions.

The report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, which has cornered José Luis Ábalos, based on evidence that he had at least 95,000 euros of allegedly illicit origin for personal expenses, has given the PP wings. Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party is already talking about a hypothetical "PSOE's secret fund" and "removal of positions"The abundant images of cash and the Socialist Party logo have stirred in the collective imagination the memory of the envelopes of banknotes distributed by the PP treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, in the context of the largest corruption case in Spanish history, the Gürtel case. With this vocabulary, the PP is trying to equate the alleged corruption scheme led by the former Socialist Transport Minister with the case that brought down Mariano Rajoy's government. Now, are they comparable?

Luis Bárcenas continues to disclose information and this Wednesday it concerned the former president of the Madrid region, Esperanza Aguirre. The former treasurer of the PP has implicated her in the collection of black money linked to donations from businessmen in the framework of Púnica corruption case, which investigates the alleged irregular financing of Madrid's PP and on which he has testified as a witness before Judge Manuel García Castellón. In this case, however, the money didn't go towards bonuses for leaders, but rather the envelope containing €60,000 would have been used to cover expenses for the campaign of the regional elections of 2007. According to some media reports, the ex-treasurer of the PP has identified construction company Ploder's CEO , Luis Gálvez, as a donor. Ploder later benefited of a public award.

The PP's slush fund trial highlights the clash between the conservative party and its treasurer until 2009, Luis Bárcenas. However, in recent years the party and Bárcenas have maintained talks with the aim of achieving a win-win agreement that has not materialised. As advanced this Tuesday by El Confidential y El Mundo, PP lawyer Jesús Santos and a close friend of Bárcenas, Agustín de Diego, held more than a dozen meetings when the first Gürtel corruption case was sentenced in 2017. Enrique López, a magistrate of the High Court at that time and now Minister of Interior and Justice of the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso in the Community of Madrid, put them in contact and disengaged from it, as sources of his environment quoted by Efe point out.

The PP's ex-treasurer Luis Bárcenas claims that it was ex Spanish president Mariano Rajoy in person who destroyed the documents that proved the existence of the party's slush fund (not knowing he kept a copy). So it is not surprising that in the pre-trial phase, Bárcenas's new lawyer, Gustavo Galán, has insisted the former president appear in court, which was in principle already expected. However, he has gone further and, not waiting to know the ex president's version of the facts, has already advanced that he will request a Bárcenas and Rajoy face to face. Despite claiming he does not want to turn the trial into "a circus", he has hinted this possibility without even having heard Rajoy's account. In his speech, the lawyer has argued that it would be "illogical" not to request the appearance of Rajoy taking into consideration what Bárcenas described in his written confession.

The ex-treasurer of the PP Luis Bárcenas returns today to Spain's High Court for a new trial for alleged corruption in the party. In this case it will be judged whether the opaque donations made by businessmen close to the party in 2008, and amounting to one million euros, were used to pay for works at the party headquarters in Madrid. These irregularities, however, are the least important (and the scandal of a political party that has ruled Spain using a slush fund to pay for work at their headquarters), since all the attention is on the Bárcenas's statement after sending a letter to the Prosecutor's Office in which he expanded his confession and directly involved ex president Mariano Rajoy.

With his wife, Rosalía Iglesias, in prison after being sentenced for her implication in the Gürtel plot, the ex-treasurer of the PP, Luis Bárcenas, has decided to let the cat out of the bag and expose party heavyweights in court. Just five days before the start of the trial at the National Court for the PP's slush fund (next Monday), Bárcenas has confessed and has broken the truce he maintained with former Spanish President Mariano Rajoy. In a letter sent to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, confirms the intention to collaborate with the prosecution in all present and future investigations, including the Kitchen plot, which also affects the former PP leader. According to the text, advanced by El País and El Mundo and to which ARA has had access, the ex treasurer claims that Rajoy was a "perfectly aware" of the opaque accounting in his party to collect cash envelopes, and accuses him of having destroyed a part of the so-called "Bárcenas papers" in early 2009 at a meeting the two held at party headquarters.