Do not think it a coincidence that in the week that started with a 30% audience share for TV3 of its documentary Spain's Secret Cesspit and on Thursday with the parliamentary commission in Congress concluding that the 'Operation Catalonia' existed (with the only votes against being from Partido Popular MPs), that there would not be suitable 'counterscheduling'. It was predicted on Tuesday by the historian, fine analyst (and in his not so distant role of journalist), Toni Soler, when he wrote that after such a huge audience for a documentary that exposed the irregularities of the police and the fabrication of false evidence against Catalan independentism, that things would stay the same. They would not stay the same.
Meanwhile, the National Audit Office announced on Wednesday that it would open an investigation to have Artur Mas and the three ministers who have already been judged, banned from office and fined, to end up paying the five million euros that the 9-N consultation cost. Such a measure with no comparison to any previous action from the National Audit office should be a fluke. It must be a coincidence that the person who signed the report is Margarita Mariscal de Gante y Mirón, ex-minister of Justice under José María Aznar. It was the first warning of why they would not let themselves be snatched away from the story of the week.
Nothing to do, however, with the plot of this Thursday featuring eight Civil Guards presenting themselves in the Catalan Parliament, some with their faces covered, looking for a copy of the e-mails of the deputy, Germà Gordó, for the 3% corruption case. Such images denigrate the Catalan Chamber and only have the power of being permanently broadcast on television. That after fifteen years of investigation into the 3% corruption case, and having been through six legislatures of Parliament, for Civil Guards to then enter the Catalan Chamber in that way is evidence in itself that they are not fighting against corruption. But the essential spectacle show is offered so that independence and corruption can be brought together in the same debate. And that must be dealt with. As on the other hand, it can later be verified by the predictable declarations of the opposition deputies, who have remained silent, or watching James Bond's Goldfinger.
The visit to the Parliament was completed with two others, with five Civil Guard officers each, in the Palace of the Generalitat and also in the Ministry of Justice, searching the visitors' book of Germà Gordó and the list of people who were part of his administration team when he occupied the position of first secretary general of the Presidency and, later, the post of Justice Minister. It is obvious that all the confiscated material could have been obtained in the same way with a different staging. But the performance would have had less impact and not have been able to cover the huge scandal that the documentary of Spain's Secret Cesspit, and the parliamentary conclusions ascertaining that there was an Operation Catalonia. And outside Catalonia, it is almost unheard of and unspoken.