President Temer of Brazil Dodges Corruption Prosecution, Again<br />25, 2017<br />RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian lawmakers on Wednesday night closed ranks to shield President Michel Temer from standing trial on obstruction of justice<br />and corruption charges, sparing him in the second such case in just two months.<br />The same thing happened during the weeks that preceded a similar vote in early August,<br />when Congress set aside the first corruption case filed against Mr. Temer.<br />In recent weeks, the president made major concessions to congressional coalitions<br />and steered hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to projects favored by lawmakers in an effort to secure the support of enough of them.<br />While he was seeking to woo dominant congressional blocs by championing those initiatives, analysts said, Mr. Temer in recent<br />days held a marathon of meetings with individual lawmakers who sought commitments of federal money for their districts.<br />Mr. Temer, a leader of the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, became president in August 2016 after<br />his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff of the leftist Workers’ Party, was impeached for violating budget rules.<br />Under Brazilian law, the president may be tried for criminal acts only if two-thirds<br />of the lower House of Congress refers a case to the country’s top court.<br />Andrada said that It’s a baseless accusation,
