This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRASILIA 001356 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR WHA/BSC 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL BR
SUBJECT: MAGALHAES WIRETAPPING CASE GOES TO SENATE FLOOR 
 
REF: A. BRASILIA 0566 
     ¶B. BRASILIA 0825 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  On April 30, the leadership of the 
Brazilian Senate refused to order the opening of expulsion 
proceedings against Senator Antonio Carlos Magalhaes (PFL) 
for allegedly ordering hundreds of illegal phone taps against 
his political opponents in his home state of Bahia.  The 
decision by the leadership, led by Magalhaes' ally Jose 
Sarney, was not unexpected and kicks the case back to the 
Senate floor.  Magalhaes' legal and ethics problems are far 
from over, and with political winds buffeting each step of 
the way, it is too early to say whether the Senator will 
suffer punishment or "have a pizza" and skate away unscathed. 
 In any case, Magalhaes' popularity is unshaken in Bahia. 
END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (SBU) The ethics case of Senator Antonio Carlos Magalhaes 
("ACM"), the powerful political boss from Bahia, ground 
forward this week as the seven-member Senate leadership 
board, led by Senate President and longtime ACM ally Jose 
Sarney (PMDB-Amapa), refused to order the opening of 
expulsion proceedings in the Senate's Ethics Committee.  This 
decision is part of the torturous path that the case has 
followed since exploding in the national press in January. 
The case began in late 2001, a few months after Magalhaes 
resigned from the Senate for an unrelated earlier ethics 
violation.  He then allegedly ordered more than 200 illegal 
phone taps of his political enemies as well as the 
wiretapping and harassment of a young woman who broke off a 
relationship with him (reftels).  He was reelected to the 
Senate in October 2002. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The case unfolded in public after Magalhaes took 
some of the juicier tidbits that he learned through the 
wiretaps to the press in order to smear his enemies.  The 
Senate Ethics Committee, prodded by the victims of the 
wiretaps and the radical wing of the PT party, then opened a 
preliminary investigation.  Last week, after several weeks of 
hearing witnesses and reviewing the police report, the 
Committee voted 8 to 7 to recommend opening formal expulsion 
proceedings.  This recommendation went to the Senate 
leadership board led by Senate President Sarney for a 
decision.  In a hurried meeting late on April 30, the 
leadership voted 5 to 2 to reject the recommendation.  While 
the voting, both in the Ethics Committee and the leadership 
board, followed expected party lines, the leadership sought 
to justify its decision not to open expulsion proceedings by 
announcing that ACM should receive only a reprimand for the 
ethics violation, while the criminal charges would be decided 
by the Supreme Court once the police finish their 
investigation. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Given the party makeup of the leadership board and 
Sarney's views, the April 30 decision was not unexpected, and 
it does not kill the chance that ACM will be expelled.  Under 
congressional rules, the full Senate can vote to override the 
leadership's decision, and PT party leader Tiao Viana has 
promised to introduce such a motion in the coming days. 
There is no certainty that a motion to force expulsion 
proceedings will pass on the floor.  A preliminary count puts 
about 30 Senators for and 30 against, with about 20 still in 
play.  If the motion does not pass, the ethics case against 
ACM will come to a close, likely with some sort of minor 
reprimand.  The police investigation is ongoing and could, at 
least theoretically, lead to a court conviction. 
 
¶5. (SBU) But if the floor motion passes, then the Ethics 
Committee would open formal proceedings, at which point ACM 
would no longer have the option of resigning his seat to keep 
his political rights.  The Ethics Committee has already voted 
against ACM once, and given the weight of evidence made 
public, it is conceivable that he could be expelled from the 
Senate and stripped him of the right to run for public office 
for eight years.  But the denouement is months down the road, 
and ACM and his allies will use every political and 
parliamentary trick to keep him in the Senate. 
 
¶6. (SBU) COMMENT.  Though diminished, Magalhaes remains one 
of Brazil's most powerful figures.  He has dominated the 
state of Bahia and the national PFL party for nearly five 
decades, and recent polling shows that his popularity remains 
intact in the state.  The fact that months after the 
revelation that he masterminded an enormous wiretapping 
scheme and mercilessly harassed a young woman who broke off a 
romance with him, the Senate is still dithering over whether 
to even open ethics proceedings is testimony to the 
complicated political expedience that dominates the Brazilian 
congress.  Those in ACM's camp --the PFL plus many in the 
PMDB and PSDB parties-- are working overtime to stall or 
shelve the proceedings.  Meanwhile, the PT has been 
surprisingly ambivalent.  Leading PT Senator Aloizio 
Mercadante alternately speaks of the importance of political 
probity and of the need to keep the Senate agenda free of 
distractions.  The PT is surely calculating that ACM, who 
supported Lula in the 2002 elections, will be key to passing 
the administration's high-stakes pension and tax reform bills 
that went to Congress this week. 
 
¶7. (SBU) In the Brazilian political lexicon, a corrupt 
politician who escapes punishment is said to be having a 
pizza.  Pundits are now running recipes for vatapa pizza 
(vatapa being a traditional Bahian dish).  It is widely 
accepted that ACM did what he is accused of doing.  Even the 
lead police investigator commented, "Every street vendor in 
Bahia knows who ordered the wiretaps."  The question is 
whether he will have to pay the price for his actions. 
HRINAK