BRAZIL: Legislators investigating Brazil's worst corruption scandal in a decade will seek aid from US authorities to find out who helped to illegally finance election campaigns of the ruling Workers Party (PT), officials have said.
The allegations that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's party bought the support of congressmen had threatened to end the former union leader's political future, although in recent weeks the storm has abated.
Delcidio Amaral, head of a congressional inquiry into the scandal, said he would travel on Monday to meet officials of the US justice department and Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau. He and Gustavo Fruet, an opposition congressman, will attempt to obtain confidential bank documents showing the origin of illegal campaign contributions in US accounts.
Duda Mendonca, Mr Lula's 2002 campaign manager, told the inquiry in September he received 10.5 million reais (€3.8 million) in a Miami bank account of an offshore company in the Bahamas for running the PT campaign.
"Our objective is to find out who funded this scam here in Brazil," Mr Amaral said, rejecting suggestions the inquiry was losing steam and political support.
"There are those who want to see us fail, but this is a key part of the investigation and we will push ahead," said the PT senator.
The two had asked John Danilovich, the US ambassador to Brazil, to help present their case to US authorities. An agreement between the two governments to co- operate in money-laundering investigations did not cover the legislatures of either country, Mr Amaral said. "We hope the [ US] justice department will make an exception."
US authorities may be hesitant to provide the documents because of the practice in Brazil of leaking confidential financial documents to the press.
Mr Lula has not been directly implicated in the scandal and has vowed to find and punish any officials involved in vote-buying or illegal funding.