It was imaginable that Mariano Rajoy would deny the existence of the PP's slush fund - he already did so in 2017 in his appearance at the Gürtel trial that ended his political career - but no less expected was that he would respond to the accusations of former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas, obsessed with implicating the Spanish ex-president. "What we are going through is a disgrace," Rajoy exploded in his statement at the trial of what he has wanted to call Mr. Bárcenas's Papers, rather than The PP's Papers, preferred by the former treasurer. Rajoy has maintained silence until Wednesday, when he has denied using dirty money for party purposes. He has used words like "delirium" and "surrealism" and, as a culmination of the statements of the main former leaders of the PP, has portrayed Bárcenas as a person cornered by justice seeking revenge without evidence.

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.

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.