The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, defended his wife's professional activities in the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies on Wednesday.

"My wife is an honest, serious and responsible professional and my government is a clean government," he said in a speech requested by the Popular Party (PP).

"It is the mud machine of Mr. Feijóo and Mr. Abascal," he said in the plenary session of the Spanish parliament, referring to the leaders of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and Vox, Santiago Abascal.

"We are not all the same," said the PSOE secretary general, explaining that influence peddling is done by others "and not by sending official letters with their signature," but rather "with envelopes with bundles of bills inside," referring to the Gürtel case. "If you don't believe me, count your ministers who have been prosecuted and convicted of corruption and count mine," he told the Popular Party bench. 

Sánchez said he was sure that the courts would soon dismiss the complaints that far-right organizations had filed against his wife, Begoña Gomez, for alleged influence peddling and corruption.

The complaints "do not even" provide grounds for notifying Begoña Gomez as a witness, argued Sánchez, who assured that his wife's professional activity is "honest, serious and responsible" and stressed that the competent public body has already ruled twice that there is no conflict of interest in this case.

Sánchez also said that both he and his wife are available and even "delighted" to testify before the commission of inquiry created by the PP in the Spanish Senate on suspicions of corruption in the government, if the opposition calls them.

A judge in Madrid, Spain, has opened an investigation into the wife of the Spanish Prime Minister, Begoña Gómez, for possible crimes of influence peddling and business corruption.  
 
According to the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid, the procedure initiated by the 41st Court of Instruction of the capital originated from a complaint filed by the Manos Limpias union, based on the private activities of Pedro Sánchez's wife.

In a resolution dated April 16, Judge Juan Carlos Peinado agreed that the investigation would remain secret.

In the complaint, the union explores Begoña Gómez's connection with a businessman who received contracts from the Central Administration.

This is Carlos Barrabés, whose consulting firm - in a temporary union with another company - obtained awards in 2020 and 2021 from the public entity Red.es, which is dependent on the Ministry of Economy. He did so with the express support of Begoña Gómez who, according to El Confidencial, gave her endorsement to the company in a letter. Gómez is co-director of the Master's Degree in Competitive Social Transformation at the Complutense University of Madrid, which is promoted by Barrabés.

The Manos Limpias complaint, which triggered the investigation, proposed that the court summon the wife of the Spanish Prime Minister to testify as a defendant, that statements be taken from several witnesses and that documentation on public contracts be collected.

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