A new twist. Dialectical pirouettes. A new version in light of what has become known regarding the summary of the PSOE’s sewer case. The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, denied on several occasions that the director of the Civil Guard, Mercedes González, had met with Leire Díez, known as the socialist party’s plumber. The last denial was last week.
Now, once González has acknowledged the meetings, the version changes. Marlaska claims that when he denied the meetings, he was referring to the fact that there was “no contact with Leire, no conversation, no reference to the plot.”
The Government is forced to perform a balancing act in the face of investigations surrounding the PSOE. Initially, Díez was a grassroots militant. Then, that she acted on her own. Then, that there were never any meetings with the director of the Civil Guard. But those meetings, which the report by the Civil Guard’s Central Operative Unit (UCO) estimated at at least three, have finally been confirmed. It was done in an unorthodox manner: in a late-night statement on Thursday. A confirmation that leaves Marlaska exposed and puts him, once again, in the spotlight, while increasing pressure on González.
“At no time did she tell me that she had held any meeting with Leire related to the facts of the plot, or where it had been discussed directly or indirectly,” Marlaska explained at the launch of the Command Center (CENAM) for the Security device for the Pope’s visit.
That is, he shifts responsibility to González, arguing that he responded based on what she told him. But Marlaska always denied that there had been meetings, in general, without any nuances. “The director of the Civil Guard has not had any meeting with anyone,” neither “Leire or anyone else, in any terms,” he said just a week ago.
Marlaska, in the midst of the storm, says he maintains “confidence” in González, but introduces nuances, as he did on Thursday, in the sense that he speaks based on what he knows. This fact increases the pressure and uncertainty about the continuity of the Civil Guard director. “As long as those meetings have been in the described form, and I have no reason to deny it, because I have no reason to doubt… Another matter is if that did not correspond to the reality or the truth of that statement.”
Marlaska leaves open the possibility that if there are new developments or the version changes from what is currently known, his opinion on González’s “honesty” and “professionalism,” and his defense of her, could vary. “I have no element that makes me suspect that this is not true and that at no time has there been any relationship in her meetings with the facts of that plot, which I repeat is truly of manifest seriousness.”
According to the summary, from the so-called PSOE sewers, there were at least three meetings between González and the considered PSOE’s plumber. They also exchanged whatsapps that were deleted because the director had automatic deletion activated. “The director of the Civil Guard is trustworthy”; “Remember that I am friends with the Director General of the Civil Guard,” Díez boasted.
The Civil Guard was forced to issue a statement late on Thursday acknowledging two meetings between González and Díez and the attempt at a third that did not occur “due to a family illness,” which prevented the plumber from traveling to Madrid as planned. A confirmation that contradicted what Marlaska had said on previous occasions.
They also confirm that Díez sounded out the head of the Benemérita about the possibility of Commander Rubén Villalba – indicted in the Koldo case – being able to resume his job, something that, according to these sources, González rejected. After this meeting, “they did not hold any further meetings.”
