BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s suspended President Dilma Rousseff vowed Thursday to use “all legal means” to fight her permanent ouster in an impeachment trial, raising the specter of continued political turmoil as interim leader Michel Temer tries to rescue a sinking economy.
Speaking hours after the Senate voted to impeach her, in what might prove her last official event within the presidential palace, the nation’s first female president blasted the process as “fraudulent” and said it was an injustice more painful than the torture she endured under a past military dictatorship. She again rejected critics’ accusation that she had used illegal accounting tricks in managing the federal budget.
“I may have committed errors but I never committed crimes,” Rousseff said during a 14-minute address, flanked by dozens of top officials and brass from her left-leaning Workers’ Party.
The Senate’s decision came after a months-long battle that laid bare the country’s fury over corruption and economic decay just months before it hosts the Summer Olympic Games.
