Brazil minister denies urging Dilma impeachment 'to halt corruption probe'

The planning minister in Brazil's interim government rejected a report Monday that he wanted to halt a huge corruption probe centered on state oil company Petrobras in which he is one of the suspects.

Folha newspaper published what it said were excerpts of secretly taped conversations in March between Planning Minister Romero Juca and Sergio Machado, an ex-president of Transpetro oil company, who is also caught up in the corruption probe.

In the conversations, Juca allegedly calls for a "national pact" to stop the probe, known as Operation Car Wash, in which dozens of top ranking politicians and business executives have been charged or already convicted for participation in a giant bribery and embezzlement scheme.

He is said to have urged the impeachment of Rousseff, saying "we need to change the government to stop this bleeding."

Juca -- a key figure in the new cabinet set up by acting president Michel Temer after the suspension May 12 of president Dilma Rousseff -- denied that his comments referred to halting Operation Car Wash.

He did not deny the authenticity of the recording but said his comments had been in reference to stopping the "bleeding" of Brazil's recession-struck economy.

However, the report meant fresh scandal for Temer, who took power 10 days ago after the Senate voted to suspend Rousseff for six months pending her impeachment trial on charges of breaking government accounting rules. Temer, a vice president who had already broken ranks and turned rival, automatically took over.

The Petrobras probe has seen prosecutors go after many of Brazil's most powerful figures. Rousseff herself is suspected of obstruction of justice, although she has not been accused of corruption for personal gain.

Temer has promised a fresh start for Brazil after growing economic and political paralysis under Rousseff. However, he has suffered a series of setbacks already, including uproar over his naming a cabinet composed entirely of white men.

He has rowed back on an initial decision to ax the culture ministry, reinstating the post after outcry from several of Brazil's best known actors and singers.

Juca is the point man in the Temer government's plans to whip Brazil's bloated and underfunded budget into shape. The government faces potentially bitter resistance to suggestions that cuts may be necessar to social programs, pensions and health spending.

It was not clear how Folha obtained the recording or where the recording was made.