Brazilian police arrested dozens of corruption suspects Tuesday as the scandal around state oil company Petrobras continued to escalate, and with it the threat to President Dilma Rousseff's government. Federal police said they had uncovered a "professional and institutionalised" bribe-paying system at construction giant Odebrecht, one of the companies implicated in a multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal that has rocked the Brazilian government.
Police staged raids in nine states across the country to execute 43 arrest warrants or temporary detention orders targeting what they said was a parallel accounting network to handle bribery payments. Rousseff, meanwhile, attended what was described as an event "in defence of democracy and legality" at the presidential palace, where legal scholars gave speeches accusing the leftist president's opponents of violating the constitution by seeking to oust her. "No coup!" chanted audience members, the rallying cry of the pro-government camp in the face of massive protests demanding the president's impeachment.
A congressional impeachment committee weighing the allegations against Rousseff decided not to examine explosive accusations that she used some of the proceeds from the Petrobras bribery scheme to fund her presidential campaigns.
The case against Rousseff so far deals only with alleged irregularities in government accounting procedures. But her opponents sought to expand the accusation to include allegations from a senator charged in the Petrobras case, who said Rousseff "knew everything" about the corruption and directly benefited from it. Rousseff's allies fired back that her opponents were trying to change the rules mid-game. The committee ultimately agreed to set aside the new allegations to keep the process from stalling. Rousseff's presidency appears to be in peril as she fights impeachment, protests, recession and scandal.
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