The PSOE has increased from 15,612 euros to 44,859 euros the payments that the socialist formation in Cantabria paid for communication consultancy to Leire Díez, investigated by the National Court in an alleged plot “to destabilize” judicial processes against Ferraz. In a document sent to the Madrid court that initiated the investigations, the party details the periods in which the so-called plumber of the PSOE provided her services as a freelancer and the amount of the corresponding invoices “in the interest of full cooperation” with justice. The document was sent on May 14, just over ten days before the Central Operative Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard entered the party’s national headquarters to request information under the orders of the National Court.
The PSOE document is a response to the head of the Madrid instruction court number 9, who accepted the diligence requested by the popular accusation (HazteOir) in the original case about maneuvers against judges, prosecutors, and civil guards who were handling investigations related to the socialist sphere. In the document, accessed by La Vanguardia, the PSOE explains that Díez was providing services as an independent freelancer from September 1, 2015, to February 28, 2017, and from March 1 to September 7, 2017, both inclusive.
For the first period, she received 32,903 euros gross and for the second, including the compensation for the unilateral termination of the contract, 11,956 euros gross. To these figures, the amounts initially provided by the PSOE (15,612 euros) for her work as a “journalist” in 2017 should be added. That payment was split into 3,655.92 euros and another 11,956.
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In this case, Judge Zamarriego investigates whether Díez led a “criminal, continuous, and coordinated action” with businessman Javier Pérez Dolset and journalist Pere Rusiñol, also investigated, to “gather compromising or irregular information” in order to “nullify or squander” investigations in “relevant cases affecting politicians and businessmen.”
These are facts identical to those investigated by the National Court judge Santiago Pedraz, who is probing whether she created a network under the supposed leadership of the former PSOE Organization Secretary Santos Cerdán to try to “destabilize” judicial cases affecting the party and Pedro Sánchez’s Government.
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