BRASÍLIA: Brazil's Supreme Court Thursday suspended a powerful lawmaker at the center of efforts to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, on grounds he tried to obstruct a probe into his alleged corruption.
Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress, is the architect of the impeachment drive that is expected to force Rousseff to step aside from office on Wednesday.
He said his suspension, the latest in a whirlpool of corruption scandals, was retaliation for his campaign against Rousseff.
Her supporters argued it was grounds for the impeachment drive now to be dropped, though it was not expected to spare her now that her case is in the hands of the Senate.
Despite facing criminal charges including bribery and hiding money in Swiss bank accounts, Cunha has survived months of attempts by prosecutors and a congressional ethics committee to see him brought to justice.
A master backroom political operator, he is widely seen as the key figure in getting the impeachment proceedings green-lighted by the lower house in April. The Senate will vote Wednesday on whether to open a trial and suspend Rousseff.
But the man Brazilians refer to as a real-life Frank Underwood -- the corrupt US politician in the hit Netflix series "House of Cards" -- appeared finally to have been brought down by the high court.
Justice Teori Zavaski slapped the suspension on Cunha Thursday morning, and the full court ratified it later in the day.
Zavaski said that Cunha had obstructed justice "to prevent the success of investigations against him."
With Rousseff likely to be suspended and replaced by her vice president, Michel Temer, next week, Cunha would have moved up to first on the presidential succession list.
Zavaski said Cunha was not fit for that job.
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