Begoña Gómez and the Never-Ending Judicial Coup Attempt in Spain

Here in Spain, we have two kinds of judges; the ones who decide whether you’re guilty or not guilty, and the ones who investigate crimes and try to build cases that get sent for trial to the former. Juan Carlos Peinado is a judge of the latter sort and he’s investigating, Begoña Gómez, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s  wife on suspicion of influence peddling. The basis for the investigation is a complaint made by a far-right pressure group.

So you’re a judge investigating a suspected case of white-collar crime and political corruption, who do you call to do the sleuthing? If you have any sense the UCO, the central detective unit of the Guardia Civil, Spain’s national gendarmerie. And that’s what Judge Peinado did. In due course its report came back, allow me to summarize and translate it; nothing here, your honor, zilch, nada, the square root of nothing, she’s as clean as a whistle.

Given what we know about the history and culture of the Guardia Civil we may safely assume that the UCO is not a hotbed of woke, progressive thought and that its members are more than likely PP and Vox voters. So if there was anything remotely suspicious on Gómez they’d have been delighted to report it.

If Judge Peinado had you or me in his crosshairs that would have ended the matter. Not in this case. He first requested all the material the Guardias Civiles had found in their investigation to be sent to him, and just today he announced that he’s summoned Gómez for questioning on July 5. In the same order he attacked the Public Prosecutor for wanting to end the investigation.

As Prime Minister Sánchez notes in this just-released statement Judge Peinado’s objective is clear, to influence the result of the European Parliament election on Sunday.

It’s possible that Prime Minister Sánchez and his wife are indeed master criminals who have been able to conceal their corrupt activities from the finest detectives in the country and from the Public Prosecutor. But there’s no evidence that they are. There’s plenty that this is a straight-up case of lawfare. Having failed to remove Sánchez from power at the polls the opposition is now getting help from its friends in the judiciary to try to do it in the courts.

And it won’t end on Sunday. When Gómez is questioned, she’ll have to choose between declining to answer Judge Peinado’s questions or answering them and risk giving him grounds to further extend his investigation. If it were you or me under investigation our lawyers would strongly advise us to decline to answer; it’s up to the judge to build the case, the accused has no obligation to assist him. But if she does that then the media in the following days will be full of “What are the secrets Gómez refuses to reveal? Why doesn’t she clear her name?”  and much the same will be said in Congress.