The regime’s press

Do you remember Detective Sonny Crockett? His white jacket with a black t-shirt? Their sports cars? Of his sunglasses? Don Johnson gave him a face in “Miami Vice”. Crockett had a secret identity: Sonny Burnett. It was the name he used to infiltrate a drug gang and reach his boss. Later, this plot became more complicated; Action shows from the 80s were like that. In one season, Crockett receives a blow to the head, loses his memory, and ends up working as a drug dealer, transforming into Sonny Burnett and forgetting his true identity.

In Alberto González Amador’s mind, this story seemed spectacular. In 2022, Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner used the television reference to name a company: “Burnet & Brown Investments”, with which they made a real estate investment in Boca Raton, north of Miami. He removed only one letter: Burnet, instead of Burnett.

This same invented name is the one that was later used for another secret operation, in 2023. To hide as much as possible that this “health technician” with whom Isabel Díaz Ayuso had established a relationship was, in reality, a director of the Quirón group: the main private entrepreneur of the public health system in Madrid.

We published the exclusive this Thursday on elDiario.es. This is information from José Precedo, who discovered that Alberto González Amador is officially registered on the Quirón intranet under a false identity: “Alberto Burnet González”. And this confirms something else: that it was never a simple “external supplier”, as was reported at the time. He appears in this internal file as “Project Director, Central Services”, assigned to the main office of Quirón Prevention.

Instead of a Ferrari – like the one Sonny Crockett drove – Alberto Burnet has a Maserati, two apartments in one of Madrid’s most expensive neighborhoods and several problems with the Justice Department: among other alleged crimes, he is being prosecuted for tax evasion and accused of corruption (in Madrid, not Miami).

The Quirón group – as also revealed by elDiario.es – has billed the Community of Madrid almost five billion euros over the last four years: double the planned budget. At the same time, González Amador’s income from Quirón since becoming Ayuso’s partner has increased fourfold. The “health technician” collected one million euros from Quirón in 2021, the year their relationship was first known.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s response to our latest exclusive on “Alberto Burnet González” is something to frame. “I believe that in a free country, any anonymous citizen can use the email address of their choice,” says Ayuso, as if he were talking about a hotmail address and not a fake profile with which his identity and functions are hidden on the company intranet. “On the part of the regime’s press, they are harassing an individual,” he also criticized.

A “private” citizen? Even the Supreme Court did not consider things this way, by not applying this aggravating circumstance in the unjust sentence pronounced against the Attorney General.

As for the “regime press”, it deserves a broader explanation.

This week, elDiario.es published several exclusives of enormous political importance. Solid, documented, contrasting research. Some bother Isabel Díaz Ayuso or the Popular Party – like our coverage on Tuesday, when we revealed that the National Court has been hiding in a drawer for two years a police report that points to María Dolores de Cospedal in the kitchen. Others affect the government and the PSOE, such as our investigation into the Salazar affair.

At elDiario.es we do not hide information or apply different standards depending on the protagonist. Our partners know this well and, in these days of turbulence for the Government, we have demonstrated it once again.

From the first moment, on the front page, we reported as closely as possible all the judicial and police news on the latest and serious cases of corruption affecting the Government. Unlike what happens in other media, our readers do not only receive half of the information.

ElDiario.es is also the newspaper that revealed the complaints of several women against the former senior official of La Moncloa, Paco Salazar; an affair that erodes the credibility of the PSOE as much, if not more, than corruption. In July we published the first complaints. And now, in December, we revealed that this party had ignored the complaints of two other women for five months – not the same ones we spoke to this summer. Until we asked about these complaints, the PSOE was dragging its feet.

This research by our colleagues Esther Palomera and José Enrique Monrosi has had a huge impact. What other news from elDiario.does not normally offer are as serious, if not more so. Media that usually ignore or discredit our work, on this occasion they spent several days opening their coverage or discussions with our exclusivity. Now they give us credibility.

We are the only newspaper to have had access to the complaints and to have spoken directly with the women concerned. Today we detail, also exclusively, the internal investigation carried out by the PSOE, in which these women are credible. All the quotes about the “Salazar case” that appear in other media take the elDiario.es investigation as their sole source. No one else has direct information about this nasty affair, in a party that claims to be feminist and which, with these complaints, has not done things well.

The question is obvious. Why do the media that deny the credibility of elDiario.es when he talks about Ayuso give him credibility when it makes the PSOE uncomfortable?

This is not the first time this has happened to us. In 2015, when the Rey Juan Carlos University fraudulent master’s degree scandal was discovered, many media outlets focused on supporting Cristina Cifuentes. To attempt to discredit our sources or cast doubt on our information. But a few months later, when we published that a socialist minister, Carmen Montón, had also obtained this university degree without deserving it, they gave us credibility.

Just four hours after the publication of the first complaints against Paco Salazar, the PSOE removed him from La Moncloa and from the post of the socialist executive to which he was to be appointed. The same thing happened with Montón, who resigned just two days after our initial reports.

But it seems that it doesn’t matter what we publish about Isabel Díaz Ayuso, about the PP or about Vox. The game of polarization means that the President of the Community of Madrid remains unpunished for any news we discover, no matter how serious it may be.

The role of these media, which only disturb power when it is in the hands of the left, remains largely unpunished. Those who then give lessons in independence and journalism to others. Those who accuse us of being part of the “regime” hide the fact that power is widely distributed in Spain and that the right – even when La Moncloa loses – still reigns much more.

Does Isabel Díaz Ayuso have no power? Not even all the autonomous governments of the PP? Doesn’t the Supreme Court have it? Not even big companies?

It is a curious piece of journalism which presents itself as unrepentant in the face of the power… of the “Sanchist regime”. This particular dictatorship, the first in history among all totalitarian governments, which controls neither the press, nor the judges, nor the police forces of its own country. This autocracy where the courts savagely persecute the wife and brother of the “dictator”.

Meanwhile, the impunity of the right is shamelessly displayed. And with the Madrid “regime” – the PP has governed this community for thirty consecutive years – almost everyone puts themselves forward.

As José Precedo summarizes: “A government pays $5 billion in four years to a company. In the company, the president’s associate operates inside under a false identity. The president’s associate is under investigation for commercial corruption.”

For publishing this, some call us “regime press”. And it’s just the opposite.

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