National deputy Marcela Pagano assures that Manuel Adorni "will be tried" in court, stating she understands there to be "plenty of evidence" against the now ex-Cabinet chief. She also warns investigations could also advance against members of the former official’s entourage.
"If I were the Mileis, I’d be very worried about the figure of Bettina Angeletti," she told Modo Fontevecchia for Net TV and Radio Perfil (AM 1190) in an interview, citing Adorni’s partner.
Pagano, 40, calls on the courts to "investigate higher up" to determine whether President Javier Milei and his sister, Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei "were aware of so many things going on."
Pagano graduated in Communication Science from UADE business university. Pagano is currently a deputy for Coherencia for the 2023-27 term although she entered Congress via the La Libertad Avanza coalition, headed by Milei, before breaking away. Prior to her incursion into politics, she was a journalist working in various media outlets, many of which specialised in the economy and finance.
Manuel Adorni is finally gone. You shared a very harsh post about him on social media, arguing that the Milei siblings used him as a shield, dumping him when he was no longer of any use. At the same time, you have been accused of being the architect of some of the destruction of Adorni’s public image. You are a protagonist, in some sense, of these 100 days. We would like to hear your testimony, now that he is no longer Cabinet chief.
What has happened to Adorni is deplorable. It is erosion for the government, which could have been avoided. If I want to tell you what seems important to me, it is that it has become evident that it is Karina Milei who calls the shots.
I believe that yesterday [June 28], if you were observing the President being interviewed under pressure by another radio station, at one point he was asked about Adorni’s future in [state energy firm] YPF and he was affirming that he would be heading for YPF, where he would be collecting a juicy salary as a director, whereupon he [Milei] could be heard to automatically interrupt himself, set aside his telephone and talk to somebody. Obviously that person was Karina Milei,because I understand that part of the promises made to Adorni included his always having YPF.
What is it with Manuel Adorni? Adorni has plenty of information and has picked a lawyer with expertise in the status of 'whistleblower' within the judicial system, a lawyer who is defending a businessman in the ‘Cuadernos’ corruption case. And I believe that the Milei siblings know that. And perhaps, for the benefit of the public knowing little about all this, entering into that status implies that the punishment can be softened to the degree that the person, once indicted and placed on trial, can direct the information and the investigation towards somebody higher up within the government.
And do you know what was inevitably going to happen in the next few days, which led the Milei siblings to dump Adorni? The forensic experts finally extracted the messages of the builder [Matías] Tabar, a key witness in the investigation, messages containing extortion of Tabar himself, messages which not only spoke of the cash handled by the Cabinet chief and the work Tabar was doing for him, messages which included and involved other officials, not just the Cabinet chief. And the government knew that.
I also believe that thanks to investigative reporting, the courts also felt under pressure. For judge [Ariel] Lijo and for prosecutor [Gerardo] Pollicita, it must be very uncomfortable that public opinion is awaiting an answer and that this man, with all the details at hand, had publicly declared that he had been evading taxes for over 10 years, lied in his sworn statements and confesses on camera that he would like to obstruct the normal course of the investigation, after calling Tabar minutes before his testimony in court.
After all this, it was going to be very difficult for Pollicita and Lijo to be able to walk the streets without fearing recrimination from ordinary people expecting justice and explanations.
What do you think of the latest appointment of Cabinet chief [Diego] Santilli?
I think that this also exposes that finally there is an aroma of coalition with PRO and La Libertad Avanza evidently converging into a single political sector. And it is important that people also know that because if there is one thing which cannot be said about Santilli, it is that he is an anarcho-capitalist coming out of the liberal doctrines of Murray [Rothbard]. It is evident that he comes from PRO. Furthermore, when he was entering Olivos [presidential residence last weekend], a crafty cameraman focussed on his car when Santilli was lowering the window, showing that he was in dialogue with Mauricio Macri.
He himself also later recognised, via social networks, that he had spoken with Macri, a dialogue also recognised by the ex-president. With all that, having Patricia Bullrich – the PRO presidential candidate only two years ago – as Senate caucus chief of La Libertad Avanza, and also figures like Cristian Ritondo sorting out [Buenos Aires Province] for La Libertad Avanza, and ministers also coming from PRO and other technical cadres who are very relevant, it is now going to be very difficult for PRO to continue issuing those kinds of messages or press communiqués trying to show themselves autonomous when things in the administration aren’t working out. I believe autonomy to be finished.
Do you assign some possibility to some kind of discussion as to who eats whom? If not finally entryism, as [Leon] Trotsky would say – what is PRO doing and what should La Libertad Avanza be wary about if they believe themselves to be winners?
I would take very much to heart what you are saying, above all in times when the people are demanding governance and transparency. And there is something very interesting in what you are saying. It is important that people know that those opinion polls on image, which are no big deal for us journalists but which give governments sleepless nights, are starting to show a very steep fall in the positive image of Milei, who does not have the image of Patricia Bullrich, for example.
Patricia Bullrich has even seen awareness of her image, which was already broad, grow with an independence which we already know her to have in politics. She is indeed a fighter and at one point she had an argument with Mauricio Macri because she wanted to be presidential candidate but Macri did not want a primary with [then Buenos Aires City mayor Horacio Rodríguez] Larreta.
So I believe that this independence is jeopardising Javier Milei’s re-election dreams. Why should Patricia Bullrich resign her dreams, also taking into account her age? Why should she relinquish the last bullet in her chamber for her dreams of the Presidency?
How is the Adorni issue going to continue? Because, independently of his no longer being Cabinet chief, the court proceedings will advance. What novelties do you imagine there? And what repercussions could these have for the unrestricted support given him by the President for 100 days?
I’m absolutely convinced that he will go to trial because there is plenty of evidence. Some questions are obscene – for example, I know that one of his secretaries has been summoned to testify. Thanks to the media, it has emerged that he spent on his vices, video games and personal purchases, using credit cards via Casa Rosada secretaries... Well, that’s the most obscene we’ve heard until now but I believe that it will advance beyond so many obscenities and eccentricities of the Adornis.
If I were the Mileis, I would be very worried about the figure of Bettina Angeletti because she is not only the wife or companion but also business partner of Manuel Adorni. She has set up a consultancy as a façade, in order to be able to invoice state companies – for example, YPF. And I believe that there will be many advances in that direction. I know that Bettina Angeletti had proposed the alternative of separating her defence from her husband’s strategy, so in that sense I think that it will advance rapidly.
I hope the courts investigate upwards as to whether the President or the presidential chief-of-staff – who was Manuel Adorni’s boss – were aware of so many things going on. For example, meetings with ministers and businessmen were invoiced and those businessmen enjoyed privileged information as to subsequent steps of the government, whether in Buenos Aires, Punta del Este, Spain or the United States.
Among the many arguments of the former Cabinet chief was that this happened to him because an ordinary person was occupying such an important post, with sinister dark forces preventing any ordinary person from being able to become Cabinet chief. In a certain sense, when you say that there were almost obscene questions like using the credit cards of officials dependent on him even for minor purchases, the question becomes: Is an ordinary person becoming Cabinet chief a problem? Was choosing a person like that, with no experience to be Cabinet chief, the right thing to do? Or, just as you passed from journalism to politics, do you find that a person without experience can occupy a post like that?
I don’t find an ordinary person occupying an important government post to be a problem. Being an ordinary person does not oblige you to be a thief. And on the other hand, watch out for those coming with political expertise since many of them have also been involved in cases of corruption. Business deals were also functioning in this government with people with political expertise in the administration.
I believe that there should obviously be a balance between renewal and expertise, an issue also cropping up in private organisations. Up to what point does not expertise finally end up crystallising in a kind of gerontocracy and to what degree does everybody being new inexperienced people create a vacuum? I would say that with somebody with expertise, well, at least you have some precedents as to what they did in the past. With somebody absolutely unknown, no. That seems to me to address Milei, not simply Adorni. Making somebody with the inexperience of Cabinet chief was a triple somersault. I don’t know if your reflection is the same.
Your reflection is marvellous but don’t forget something which I told you beforehand and on which I’d like to insist. To understand the logic of siblings, you have to understand who makes the decisions. It was Karina Milei who decided to make Manuel Adorni Cabinet chief within the logic of a government with more infighting than officials – the logic of a government with two factions confronting each other: Santiago Caputo versus Karina Milei. From the first day they came to power, they tried to bag the post of Cabinet chief.
First, they took out [Nicolás] Posse, one of Milei’s best friends, who stuck up for them even in the worst moments of private activity, working under [Eduardo] Eurnekian, who gave them an opening. Well, they threw out Posse like a dog.
Then, Guillermo Francos. a person chosen by Javier Milei. When they finally managed to get rid of him, it was also due to the errors of Francos himself – due to the intelligence operation within the government to disclose the case of ANDIS [national disability agency kickbacks scandal] because the Cabinet chief had spies in his office installed by himself, also taking down Guillermo Francos.
So what happened? You have to understand the government as a chessboard, where an advancing Karina does not want to leave any square vacant because if she does, it will be occupied by one of Santiago Caputo’s people.
May I make an inference and let’s see if it’s plausible – is the Cabinet chief ultimately Karina?
Karina is the president. It is Karina who heads the ministerial meetings and who decides who climbs within La Libertad Avanza and who is ejected. Karina has all the power within La Libertad Avanza. Karina, for example, decided against [Ramiro] Marra, who had been the City mayoral candidate and who was Milei’s main political operator at one point along with Oscar Zago [whose ejection was also decided by Karina], who lent his MID [Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo] brand for Javier to enter Congress in 2021.
Karina decides the fate of everybody within La Libertad Avanza and the political decisions are also often taken by Karina Milei. The only decisions which the President obsessively and constantly takes upon himself are the financial ones because to call them economic would be an error. This financial plan is the idea of [Economy Minister] Luis Caputo. The rest of politics, national and territorial, of La Libertad Avanza is in the hands of Karina Milei.
How do you imagine 2027?
That’s very difficult because I believe that the outcome of 2027 is in the hands of what is happening to people economícally. I see a real economy totally different from the presidential narrative. I do not believe in the current INDEC [national statistics bureau]. I think that they owe many explanations as to why the previous INDEC chief was pushed out. I think that not wanting to update the methodology for measuring inflation is, basically, to hide the real inflation punishing all us Argentines.
But beyond what the statistics hide and manipulate, when Argentines go to the supermarket, they see the reality. When you go pick up your wage and it does not reach the end of the month. I come across many businessmen who tell me that their employees request advances because in mid-month they no longer have the pay in their pocket to survive. When, as we are seeing, 22,000 companies die under this government and the PyMEs small and medium-sized companies do not receive any kind of benefit to be able to subsist. I live and work in Buenos Aires Province, whose productive heart and whose creator of genuine formal employment is the industrial PyME, which is in free fall.
I feel that it will be very difficult for voters to repeat their 2023 votes. Furthermore, this government is going to have to invent a slogan because the one of moral standards as a state policy no longer fits. Neither does the combat against the caste because they have been shown to convert themselves into a caste. And, above all, they have shown it because, by covering up the corruption of Adorni, they have shown agreement with it.
They have shown agreement with tax evasion, despite not pardoning or condoning anybody else absolutely any tax in this country. This government took office and automatically increased income tax. They have just voted in Congress the ‘Super RIGI’ tax benefits for foreign giant companies, for the super-rich – i.e. those who invest US$1 billion – but for those who cannot reach the end of the month, there is nothing.
So I think that there will be an important backlash in next year’s elections. Also the infighting, the battle with [Vice-President] Victoria Villarruel, about whom we do not know if she is going to be a candidate, the conflicts with Patricia Bullrich for saying what she thinks about Adorni, is going to have its consequence. I think that they are giving Peronism a huge advantage because up until now, they are killing each other.
But I feel that people are desperate and they cannot be permitted to take to the streets and seize the helm of the drifting boat. I hope that there is a political leadership up to taking that helm beforehand because we Argentines today are still paying the consequences of what we experienced in 2001 and 2002 and it cost a lot to emerge from that situation. And I feel that we are in a boat adrift with personalities aboard who are accelerating directly towards the iceberg and a political leadership which has yet to decide to take the helm.
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