The PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo has learned the lesson from the fall of Pablo Casado, and has not only closed ranks around Isabel Díaz Ayuso and the complaint for tax crimes that harass the partner of the president of the Community of Madrid. He has also decided to defend with everything the chief of staff of the barons, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, who threatened to “shred” and “close” elDiario.es. Feijóo’s right-hand man in Congress, Miguel Tellado, defended Ayuso’s high-ranking official on Tuesday and framed his attempts to intimidate journalists who are reporting on the Madrid leader in “private conversations.”
“They are private conversations,” Tellado said in a press conference in Congress, asked about the WhatsApp messages sent by Rodríguez to a journalist from elDiario.es. This medium has not been able to ask the leader of the PP because the party’s press officers have decided not to give him the floor. Nor was elDiario.es able to publicly ask authorized leaders last week about Ayuso and his partner’s tax problems. Furthermore, the PP has chosen not to call the usual media appearance of the party spokesperson, Borja Sémper, after the meeting of the Steering Committee that was held this Tuesday.
Tellado has not only chosen silence in the face of the Madrid Government’s threats against a media outlet, but he has criticized elDiario.es (without daring to quote it) for making public the full conversation in which Ayuso’s chief of staff launches their threats. Feijóo’s right-hand man has consciously ignored the fact that it was the Ayuso Government that first partially leaked the conversation to another medium, ignoring the threatening and insulting messages.
“It is not my place to evaluate private conversations that transcend and are made public to harm people,” said Tellado, who has ignored the threats that Ayuso’s senior official launched against journalists. Feijóo’s right-hand man in Congress has resorted to the Madrid PP’s argument: “As far as we know, private messages from a WhatsApp conversation between two people who have known each other for many years have been leaked.”
But, as the journalist who received the threatening messages explained, there has never been a friendly relationship between them. Just professional.
Tellado has also repeated the argument that the information revealed by elDiario.es is “sexist”. “It is tremendously sexist to ask a woman to answer for what her partner may have done four years ago, when she did not even have that relationship with that person at that time. I think it is something extremely sexist and that certainly speaks clearly about who carries out these types of attacks,” he said. Immediately afterwards, he has demanded explanations from Pedro Sánchez for the alleged work of his wife, Begoña Gómez, and that they are not part of any judicial procedure, unlike the alleged tax fraud of Alberto González Amador.
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At elDiario.es we are aware that publishing news like this is not easy, that there may be consequences. At least we know what we’re dealing with this time. They have made it clear to us and in writing: “We are going to crush you, you are going to have to close.” The threats from Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, the right-hand man of the president of Madrid, are not just a warm-up. It is not even the first time that he has resorted to pressure like this to prevent information from being published.
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Source: www.eldiario.es
