BRAZILIAN President Dilma Rousseff’s lawyer told the senate on Wednesday evening that moves to impeach her were part of a corruption cover-up.

Jose Eduardo Cardozo presented 370 pages of defence papers for his client, who was suspended by congress last month over allegations of borrowing money to raise public spending in an election year — a political peccadillo of all recent leaders.

He pointed to the recent spate of leaked recordings of figures in Michel Temer’s interim government discussing how to scupper the “Car Wash” bribery probe at state oil firm Petrobras, in which many of them are implicated — notably congressonial speaker Eduardo Cunha.