United States intelligence agents have likely played a decisive role in placing José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on the conveyor belt of major scandals, from which few, very few, emerge unscathed.
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It is no secret. It is stated in the judge’s order and has been confirmed from Washington by the Department of Homeland Security. The Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office has provided the most significant information in the ongoing judicial investigation. HSI agents assigned to the United States embassy in Madrid managed to extract data from a mobile phone seized from Venezuelan businessman Rodolfo Reyes, former executive and shareholder of the airline Plus Ultra. Its content was encrypted. The American agents solved it.
The United States has provided intelligence and technology to the investigations on Zapatero
The computer material provided by HSI to the Economic and Fiscal Crimes Unit (UDEF) of the Spanish National Police supports the narrative that presents Rodríguez Zapatero at the head of a scheme. It is not ruled out that HSI may provide more information in the coming weeks or months. The Zapatero scheme is the concept that is being established in public opinion these days. The former president faces a serious judicial problem and is in the midst of a grave moral crisis. Another radioactive crater. The PSOE could be mortally wounded. Whoever names it, fires the bullet. “Yes, bro, our buddy Zapatero behind it,” says Rodolfo Reyes in one of the messages deciphered by U.S. intelligence. We have read it these days in all the newspapers. In Venezuelan and Caribbean slang, pana means companion, colleague, comrade.
The Zapatero file has been open in Washington for years. At the parade of the October 12, 2003 celebration, while leader of the opposition, he sat down in front of the United States flag in protest against the invasion of Iraq. In April 2004, his first decision after winning the elections was to withdraw the troops that José María Aznar had sent to Iraq, after the invasion was concluded, to satisfy George W. Bush. One thousand three hundred soldiers returned home. In September of that same year 2004, during an official visit to Tunisia, Zapatero said that other countries should follow Spain’s example and leave Iraq, a statement that greatly angered the Washington rulers. That statement bothered them more than the troop withdrawal. In October 2005, the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, made a large order of military equipment from Spain. Eight patrol boats and twelve military transport planes. The sale of the planes was vetoed by the United States and there were strong tensions over the technological equipment of the patrol boats, whose construction was assigned to the public company Navantia, which at that time had very little workload. The Caracas order calmed the workers of the Bay of Cádiz and the CIA opened an investigation into the Venezuelan intermediaries who accompanied the signing of the contract, valued at 1.2 billion dollars. It was the beginning of a good relationship between Zapatero and Chávez, with José Bono at the head of the Ministry of Defense. Bono now lives retired in the Dominican Republic.
Zapatero has worked as a consultant and advisor, like other former presidents, but he has done so in two high-risk areas in the current cold war: Venezuela and China. Has he done this work like his predecessors? What are the limits? That is the question, that is the mystery, in a country that still needs to legislate on lobbies. There are major struggles in Madrid regarding this; the bill has been stalled for months in Congress. After finishing his term, Aznar visited Vladímir Putin in Moscow three times (2004, 2007, and 2016). The former president made it public. They probably talked about the weather in Siberia, but it is also likely they discussed other matters. No one investigated Aznar for this. Putin had not yet ordered the invasion of Ukraine. No former Spanish president has dedicated themselves to social volunteering after finishing their term.
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There is a Zapatero file in Washington. And there is a Sánchez file. The latter was opened in 2019, under the presidency of Joe Biden, due to the PSOE pact with Unidas Podemos. During the crisis with Morocco in 2021, there was much coldness from Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Sánchez caught the message, changed his line on the Sahara, reconciled with Morocco, and agreed with the Americans on the expansion of the Rota naval base. The NATO summit held in Madrid at the end of June 2022 was a complete success. Biden was enthusiastic at the Prado Museum. Even Alberto Núñez Feijóo, newly arrived in the capital, congratulated the government. What times.
Subsequently, Sánchez has deployed the anti-Trump shield to regain political initiative and protect himself from the high toxicity of the scandals of Santos Cerdán and José Luis Ábalos. He refuses to pay 5% of GDP on defense and says so publicly, while other European prime ministers think of doing the same and remain silent. Donald Trump has reacted furiously and other European governments have been upset, as they were exposed before their public opinions. This is the case of Italy. Germany wants a greater commitment from Spain to military spending. The Spanish government maintains a strong confrontation with Israel regarding Gaza and Lebanon. Israel is another dangerous adversary. A file in Israel is no small matter. Sánchez was the first European leader to reject the attack on Iran and gradually other European leaders moved closer to his position. On April 14, he was received in Beijing by President Xi Jinping. After that trip, China is announcing significant investments in Spain for the manufacture of electric cars. Upon returning from Beijing, Sánchez led, together with Zapatero, a summit of progressive leaders in Barcelona, attended by the presidents of Brazil and Mexico, where an international front rejecting Trump’s policies was staged. While that summit was taking place, UDEF was finalizing its report to the judge with the data provided by HSI agents after decrypting businessman Reyes’s mobile phone.
Scheme Zapatero. In the midst of the scandal, the United States ambassador to Spain, Benjamín León, received last Friday the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal. Both were photographed in front of the flags of their respective countries. America is increasingly intertwined in Spanish politics. Hernán Cortés is a witness to this.
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