The case against the Attorney General is fueling debate within the PSOE about his resignation.
A “political case,” they denounced. Pedro Sánchez and his entire core group in the government and the PSOE closed ranks tightly to defend the Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz, when Supreme Court Judge Ángel Hurtado charged him, in October 2024, with the alleged crime of revealing secrets. “There is no case,” they insisted. And they publicly questioned Judge Hurtado for decisions that were “difficult to understand,” although privately they accused him of “prevarication.”
The Moncloa (Ministry of Justice) framed the case not only within the strategy it attributes to the "political, judicial, and media right" to try to overthrow the Prime Minister at any cost—"whoever can do something, let them do it," demanded José María Aznar—but within an even worse scenario: within the even fiercer battle against Sánchez, which they attribute to the Madrid Prime Minister, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, along with her chief of staff, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez. Not surprisingly, the accusation against the Attorney General is the alleged leak of private data from businessman Alberto González Amador—Ayuso's boyfriend—who is himself being investigated for alleged tax fraud.
The Government reiterates its support for "those who pursue crime" against "an alleged tax evader."The government reaffirmed its "absolute support" for García Ortiz on Tuesday, when the Supreme Court's appeals chamber upheld his indictment, which forces him to face trial. "We have always believed in his innocence," they emphasized. And Sánchez himself—after his audience with the King in Palma—certified this: "We support the actions of the Attorney General, we believe in his innocence, and therefore, he has the endorsement and support of the government."
As María Jesús Montero, Félix Bolaños, and Pilar Alegría have done on previous occasions, yesterday the Minister of Inclusion, Elma Saiz, supported García Ortiz: "We cannot put someone who pursues a crime on the same level as an alleged tax evader," she argued.
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But another minister who doesn't always agree with the official line of the government and the PSOE—the independent Margarita Robles, Minister of Defense—qualified this support for García Ortiz's continuation. She warned that although he is not legally required to resign following his indictment, his resignation "is a personal decision that the Attorney General must make."
"Resignations are always a personal matter; each person must know, based on their responsibilities, what they must do at any given time," said Robles, who was a Supreme Court justice.
The Attorney General of the State, Álvaro García Ortiz
LVThe minister, as a jurist, defended García Ortiz's "presumption of innocence." "We are all innocent, including the Attorney General, until there is a final conviction," she warned. "The law does not expressly provide for a case of resignation in this specific case," Robles noted. And the judge has not even issued the order to open the trial, she noted. But she insisted that it should be the Attorney General "who makes the decision he deems most appropriate to safeguard the institution."
And this is precisely the debate raging in some socialist circles: while no one questions García Ortiz's actions, there are those who advocate for his resignation to preserve the institution he leads. Former minister Josep Borrell also did not question his innocence. But he admitted: "Aesthetically, as some commentators have said, an indicted attorney general is not the best of things."
Page takes a stand against the attorney general's continuation: "For his own good, he could defend himself better."The president of Castilla-La Mancha, the Socialist Emiliano García-Page, echoed this argument. García Ortiz, in his opinion, has "arguments to defend himself." But he warned that "he could defend himself much better without the responsibility, at the same time, of having to maintain a semblance of fairness in the rest of the cases." "For his own good, he could defend himself better," Page stated.
And he emphasized that if a subordinate of García Ortiz were to find himself in his situation, "the Attorney General is automatically obligated to remove him to safeguard the institution." He concluded that the Attorney General should "apply the same doctrine," out of "pure common sense."
Read alsoAnother PSOE critic, former Aragonese president Javier Lambán, was more forceful: "For the sake of justice, the rule of law, and his own dignity, he must resign now."
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