Brazilian President Michel Temer, facing growing calls for his resignation over a corruption scandal, said he would not step down even if he was formally indicted by the Supreme Court.
"I will not resign. Oust me if you want, but if I stepped down, I would be admitting guilt," Temertold Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil's biggest newspaper, in an interview published yesterday.
Brazilians who have become inured to a massive, three-year corruption investigation were shocked last week by the disclosure of a recording that appeared to show Temer condoning the payment of hush money to a jailed lawmaker.
The scandal has threatened to tear apart Temer's coalition in Congress and leave Latin America's largest economy adrift as the President fights for his political survival, just a year after the impeachment of his predecessor.
The Supreme Court has opened an investigation into the revelations that were part of plea bargain testimony by the billionaire owners of meatpacking giant JBS SA.
The court had been expected to decide this week whether to suspend the investigation at Temer's request until it could be determined if the recording of his March conversation with JBS chairman Joesley Batista was doctored to implicate the leader.
But Chief Justice Carmen Lucia ruled yesterday that the court would not take up the recording issue until Brazil's federal police finished examining the tape to determine if it had been edited, possibly making it inadmissible as evidence.
