Mani Pulite, the ultra pseudo-union responsible, among others, for the opening of the case against Begoña Gómez, wife of the President of the Government, became this Tuesday one of the most discussed topics in X. The reason: the resignation of his lawyer Carlos Perales, of the Preico Jurídicos law firm, to continue representing him. The lawyer explains that “what was initially configured as a legal task of a strictly technical nature (…) with the aim of obtaining a judicial solution based on the material truth (…) has progressively transformed into a question whose presentation and treatment exceeds the legal framework to be placed in the context of the political controversy”.
The letter recalls one of the most famous scenes of Casablanca: Humphrey Bogart (Rick) asks Captain Renault (Claude Rains) by what right he has to close the place and he replies, just before collecting his winnings at the casino: “What a scandal! What a scandal! I discovered that people gamble here.”
The words that the lawyer chooses to renounce his client and the way in which he combines them are surprising, given the events: “Controversy”, “gradual”… The lawyer had every reason to suspect Miguel Bernad’s intentions for a long time, because if there is something to concede to the president of Manos Médicas, it is that he does not hide when he engages in politics. In April 2024 he went with a megaphone in his hand to via Ferraz, where the PSOE headquarters is located, to ask for “the satrap’s resignation”. And on the patio The cat in the water, program of the television network El Toro, has already clarified what his objectives were: “This smells like a funeral and we must not bury him (Sanchez). We must cremate him so that not even the bones remain.”
Bernad doesn’t even hide his nostalgia for times gone by from the public. Last March he was one of the proud signatories – together, among others, with the coup plotter Antonio Tejero, sentenced to 30 years in prison for 23-F – of a manifesto that begins like this: “We Spaniards are grateful to Franco”. The president of Mani Pulite belongs to the team for which everything is dictatorship except dictatorship. The group with which he signed the Franco manifesto, Piattaforma 2025, among other things has some problems with his X account due to his nostalgic fervor. His penultimate tweet reads: “In a just world, Otegui would have already died after being shot.”
After the calamities of the lawyer, who considers what Mani Pulite means “incompatible” with “procedural logic”, with “independence”, with “technical rigor” and with “rigorous submission to objective legal criteria”, detractors surprised by the lawyer’s epiphany and staunch defenders of the “patriot” Bernad have sprung up in X.
The latter recall in their tweets the great undertaking of Mani Pulite as a popular accusation in Noos case, when he managed to get Infanta Cristina to sit on the bench. They do not mention, however, both the ruling of the National Court which in 2021 sentenced the president of the pseudo-union to four years in prison for one crime of extortion in a degree of necessary cooperation and another in a degree of attempt – without prejudice to the fact that, together with Ausbanc, they dedicated themselves to coercing banking institutions and companies in exchange for not launching legal actions or discredit campaigns against them – as well as that of the Supreme Court of 2024 who acquitted – considering that, although “ethically reprehensible”, the “intimidation” factor necessary for such a crime was not present in their conduct – they explain that Manos Médicas offered to withdraw the accusation against Cristina de Borbón in exchange for two million euros. I don’t know, Rick. Patriots, but not much.
