“Finally, Attorney General speaks, and speaks well!”
After months of criticism and damaging innuendo, Portugal’s Attorney General faced the cameras last night, accepting the interview requested by RTP before parliament called her ‘as a matter of urgency’ to address MPs.
Looking ‘in control’ and ‘comfortable’, Lucília Gago answered every question, almost without hesitation, showing that the years in which she has kept her counsel had nothing to do with any inability to take the lead. She simply prefers “discretion” over “hype and bluster”, she explained.
Ms Gago “gave a good interview” concedes leader writer Edwardo Dâmaso: the first relevant news was that she “has the capacity to give explanations to the country without being prisoner to legal jargon”.
And she used this capacity to the hilt – rejecting all the buzzing backroom criticism of ‘a coup d’état’ in Operation Influencer; of Machiavellian timing in announcing the inquiry into the Luso-Brazilian twins (that implicates President Marcelo) – and of any responsibility in the painfully drawn out ‘remand periods’ imposed on defendants in both Influencer, and later the corruption probe in Madeira.
Indeed, those latter situations had nothing to do with her, or the Public Prosecutor’s Office – it was more down to the judges of criminal instruction, and how they interpreted the evidence in front of them, she said.
Over the space of an hour, Ms Gago made it clear she still believes she and her department are victims to political persecution; she is ‘perplexed’ by the comments made by the Justice minister recently, but believes they were all part of the “orchestrated campaign (against her and her department) involving a collection of people who once had responsibility in the life of the Nation”.
Has she ever considered resigning? Not once. Does she feel responsible in any way for António Costa resigning? Not a bit. “The Public Prosecutor’s Office owes apologies to no one”.
In one fascinating hour, Ms Gago managed to put all her critics neatly into a box, and close the lid.
Her mandate expires in three months time, and she has already said the equivalent of she cannot wait: the job has clearly been a minefield, but Ms Gago appears to be negotiating the horrors with a combination of grit and grace.
As for today’s ‘reactions’, detractors are being surprisingly quiet. Justice Minister Rita Júdica has “refused to respond” to Ms Gago’s words, and the gaggle of political figures who have been apparently bristling for a fight for weeks have all been found essentially mumbling about the need for her to come to parliament and face questions being “more urgent than ever”.
Eduardo Dâmaso sees it differently. “You might not agree with everything (said during the interview) but (it) rescued the Public Prosecutor’s Office from the role of a punchbag”.
