An attorney general wearing the robe in the dock is undignified.

The seven magistrates of the Supreme Court will decide whether Álvaro García Ortiz is guilty of revealing secrets; a very serious crime for a state attorney general.

But whatever the verdict, the damage to state institutions has already been done. Before making any decision, everyone should ask themselves if that action meets three requirements: Is it legal, morally acceptable, and publishable? And, in this case, if the court determines that there was no illegality in his actions, it is clear that what he did is ethically unacceptable and cannot withstand public scrutiny.

But those three criteria seem to matter very little to Pedro Sánchez and a good portion of his collaborators in the government, the party, and the institutions. Since arriving at La Moncloa in 2018, the president has been colonizing everything he needed to stay in power, breaking his promises and twisting the law and even public officials. What was unconstitutional one day was perfectly legal the next; the partners with whom he would never govern became the crutches that helped him stay afloat; and, what is worse, the public authorities shamelessly submitted to his demands, while he held Congress and the Senate in contempt.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the Attorney General appeared in the dock yesterday wearing his judicial robes, which were issued to him to fulfill his constitutional obligations "in defense of legality, the rights of citizens, and the public interest protected by law, either ex officio or at the request of interested parties, as well as to ensure the independence of the courts and to seek the satisfaction of the public interest before them." García Ortiz demonstrates his unworthiness, not only by failing to resign from his post after being first charged and then prosecuted, but also by appearing in court in the vestments that bestow upon him an authority he no longer deserves.

There he was, alongside a prosecutor who owed him obedience and a state attorney who owed hers to the government, declaring himself innocent of the charges against him. His assistants began their presentation by denouncing the investigating judge for conducting an "inquisitorial and invasive" investigation against their client. The court, of course, ignored the attempt to discredit the judge. To speak of "prospective" actions by a magistrate, Ángel Hurtado , against a defendant whose first action was to destroy the evidence of his alleged crime, deleting all his emails and WhatsApp messages, is hardly credible. But we return to the essence of Sánchez's policies: anything goes to remain in power.

We have twelve days of questioning ahead of us, with a total of 40 witnesses expected to corroborate whether the evidence of wrongdoing reported by the investigating judge is sufficient to convict the Attorney General. What is beyond doubt is that the Prosecutor's Office sent confidential information from the Socialist Party headquarters (Ferraz), the Prime Minister's office (La Moncloa), and several journalists. This information pertains to Alberto González Amador , who is under investigation for alleged tax fraud and, coincidentally, is the partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso , the President of the Community of Madrid and a political thorn in Pedro Sánchez 's side. The traceability of the operation is more than proven, although it remains unclear who pressed the "send" button.

The urgency for García Ortiz to receive the subsequently leaked document became clear yesterday in the initial statements of various members of the Prosecutor's Office, although significant contradictions arose among them. Someone is lying. However, the text messages recovered before their deletion show the Attorney General's keen interest in obtaining the letter to "control the narrative." This wasn't about "defending citizens and upholding the law," as the Constitution states, but rather about attacking the President of the Community of Madrid.

The start of the trial coincided with two other news items of undeniable political and legal significance: the resignation of the president of the Valencian Generalitat, Carlos Mazón , and the submission to the courts of a UCO report implicating the current Minister of Territorial Administration and former president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres , in the Koldo case . While socialist politicians and journalists have been insisting for months that Mazón should have resigned long ago (rightly so), they continue to defend García Ortiz's position (the first attorney general in any EU country to be prosecuted) and maintain Torres's innocence until proven guilty. This is all without mentioning their support for the socialist candidate from Extremadura, Miguel Ángel Gallardo , who is being prosecuted for embezzlement in the case involving Pedro Sánchez's brother. What double standards!

And, in the height of inappropriateness and shamelessness, the Minister of the three branches of government, Félix Bolaños (one of those who defended the unconstitutionality of the Amnesty Law until they needed the seven votes of the fugitive Carles Puigdemont and then vehemently applauded its approval), announced last week a reform of the Criminal Procedure Law so that prosecutors would be the ones to investigate criminal proceedings in Spain. Although it is impossible for it to receive the parliamentary support for its approval, Bolaños's audacity knows no bounds. He would hand over criminal justice to prosecutors who owe obedience to the man who yesterday sat in the dock accused of a serious crime. As the Count of Romanones once said, "Damn, what a bunch."