All Quotes

"Two years to carry out Mani Pulite and four to defend myself from the consequences."

"I understand that it's hard to accept something so simple: that a magistrate, a public prosecutor, gets it right for once and uncovers a series of crimes by conducting a thorough investigation."

"I also read in the newspapers that the Mani Pulite investigation was an investigation into corruption, but you know that's not true, right? It was an investigation into false accounting."

"Mani Pulite created a vacuum: that's when personal parties started, beginning with me. But these parties last only a morning, and I am living proof of that."

"We did what any radiologist does when you go for an X-ray to see if you have a disease; we discovered that our country was sick with endemic corruption."

"It is not a day of celebration 25 years later. Twenty-five years have passed, but it seems to me that when I open the newspaper every morning, everything is the same as before."

"Rather than corruption or extortion, we should talk about “environmental giving”, i.e. an objective situation in which those who have to give money no longer even wait to be asked; they now know that in that particular environment it is customary to give bribes or protection money, and so they comply."

"Before I leave, I would like to put everything online so that one day someone can read it and see a different truth from what has been told."

"Are thieves, corrupt individuals, tax evaders, mafiosi or those who – like me – uncovered them with the Mani Pulite investigation a disgrace to the country?"

"After Mani Pulite, your country embarked on a path of profound change. In our opinion, Silvio Berlusconi blocked that process."

"Let me explain the becraun. The becraun is this: that we have all stolen here."

"Even if we admit that a magistrate has made a mistake or overstepped his bounds, this should not authorise thieves and their supporters... the vultures of due process... to cast even the slightest shadow on the commendable and never sufficiently applauded work of Borrelli and Di Pietro."

"Craxi made the mistake of passing off his comrades who committed suicide (out of shame at having been caught red-handed) as victims of anti-socialist conspiracies:... that is a lie, honourable member. What does Di Pietro care about political aims?"

"Never has a judicial measure been more popular, more eagerly awaited, almost liberating, than this one signed against Craxi [the first notice of investigation] [...] Di Pietro did not allow himself to be intimidated by criticism or threats from half the political world (let's say the rotten regime of which the overweight Bettino is the champion) and struck low and high, even up there where not even eagles dare to fly. He struck without haste, without any impatience to get into the newspapers to reap more glory. Craxi made the mistake... of passing off his suicidal comrades (ashamed of having been caught red-handed) as victims of anti-socialist conspiracies... That is a lie, honourable member: what does Di Pietro care about political aims... The judges work calmly, in absolute serenity: they know that the citizens, having regained their dignity and critical faculties, are on their side. As we at l'Indipendente always have been."

"I have never written that Di Pietro and his colleagues have pardoned the PDS: what evidence would I have to make such a claim?"

"Those honourable members who are now tearing their double-breasted suits (probably paid for with bribes) because many politicians end up in prison until they tell the truth are wrong to take it out on Borrelli and his wonderful colleagues. The magistrates are only doing their duty. And we are with them... [...] Prison is the best place to serve justice, to reflect and to remember."

"Mani Pulite in 1992 was a coup d'état that destroyed the First Republic, founded on workers' social rights, and opened the door to a cycle of liberalist organisations that destroyed the working class."

"These are days of great upheaval. We must all reflect on what is happening. The sacrosanct thirst for justice cannot be quenched by trampling on people's dignity with impunity."

"After an initial phase of genuine investigation, the inquiry took on such proportions that the situation got out of hand. And something strange happened. It was as if we were on the eve of God's arrest. Before meeting, party secretariats would inquire about the latest arrests. Companies stood still, waiting for the arrival of the Financial Police. The country was under hypnosis. Diplomats around the world wondered: what will happen in Italy? The Christian Democrats and the Italian Socialist Party had already given up. But the Communists would get away with it. At this point, Berlusconi entered the fray, blessed by Gelli. Entrepreneurs spoke out in droves. The more people were implicated, the better. Anything to prevent the country from falling into the hands of the Communists."

"Making me a hero reinforced the theory that the Italian Communist Party was involved like everyone else. It is an exploitation by the right."

"In investigations such as Mani Pulite, there is always the risk that an innocent person will be implicated. I accepted my fate so that the investigation could be completed. I support the rule of law even when the rule of law is wrong."

"I support the judges, I support the Mani Pulite investigation. I served my sentence in full. I even refused a pardon."

"What frightens and worries me is the slowness of judicial proceedings in the face of a perverse intertwining of politics and business that has increasingly taken on the form of a vast, widespread and ramified system."

"(About the request for a new Constituent Assembly during Tangentopoli) A constituent assembly is convened when there is such a rupture within the country, as happened after the war and after the fall of fascism, and this was indispensable. Even in the presence of very serious events, of a dangerous degeneration of the political system, we are not in a post-war situation, and resorting to a constituent assembly seems to me to be truly excessive."

"The people rise up when they feel their wallets are being hit and shout when they can send the powerful to the gallows. This was demonstrated by the French Revolution. But also by the tremendous populism and blind fury of Tangentopoli. :*Tommaso Labranca, Baruffe, 38/2009."

"Those who did not live before Tangentopoli do not know the sweetness of life."

"Corruption in Italy has always been the real emergency, a factor that affects political and economic life. But the media and political circus, once the storm of Mani Pulite had passed, pretended that it no longer existed. Fuelling a factory of generic chatter, hanging in the clouds and based on nothing. The force of things then takes care of bringing us back to reality."

"The Chiesa case was a very minor case. It acted as a detonator because the time was ripe for “Tangentopoli”, which was due to something much more complex than this: it has always been known that there was corruption in Italy, the ruling class exuded this stench of sewage that everyone could smell, the famous “holding your nose”. However, as long as the alternative to this political class in power at the time was a Communist Party, which was a facsimile of the Soviet one, based on tanks, secret police, denunciations, trials, [...] as long as this spectre existed, we could not afford the luxury of putting the ruling political class on trial and sending them to prison. It was when this nightmare collapsed with the Berlin Wall that the time was ripe for this to happen."

"If I could have imagined how the old Italian political class would be destroyed - which deserved destruction, let's be clear - if I could have imagined that the destruction of the old Italian political class, which was largely corrupt, would have led to a situation like the current one and that the old proportional law would be replaced by the current majority law as it has been compiled, I would perhaps have defended the old class. At the very least, I would not have fought so bitterly and vigorously against that political class, which deserved to end, but which is being replaced by successors who, remember, will make us regret the old one. It is the worst thing that can be said. But I say it. Because I really cannot see what is coming out of this reshuffling of the cards."

"Mani Pulite was a mafia settling of scores. It killed the PSI, the DC and the other parties that had built Italian democracy; thus emerged the MSI, the Lega and a party built by Publitalia employees. The cultural collapse is evident."

"If you ask me whether the PCI was involved in the bribery system, I would say no. But if you ask me whether the PCI took bribes, I would say yes."

"When, a few weeks before the Mani Pulite scandal broke, I wrote an editorial denouncing “the Camorra members of Palazzo Marino”, Silvio Berlusconi called me, extremely irritated, explaining that I had arrived in Milan, not Naples."

"On 21 February, four days after the arrest of Chiesa, I was visited by Ugo Finetti, vice-president of the Lombardy Region and a leading figure in Milanese socialism. He was accompanied by Paolo Berlusconi, who was not yet the editor of Il Giornale (he would become so on 16 July: and for this reason, on 20 January, Montanelli had written to Silvio informing him that the announced transfer of ownership would not alter the agreements on the independence of Il Giornale and its editor, which had been made with Silvio and “always respected”). Finetti was pale, Paolo seemed annoyed that the various appeals made to me by Fininvest representatives, asking that Il Giornale not disrupt the group's relations with the PSI, continued to fall on deaf ears. Finetti has a folder with articles from our Milanese news section, underlined with a pea green highlighter. He gives them to me so that I can challenge my fellow reporters. “The judges of the Public Prosecutor's Office,” Finetti explains to me, “make files with newspaper clippings, just like this one: then, when something happens, they find already abundant documentation and dig out what they want.” Paolo Berlusconi cuts to the chase: “We have to work with the institutions, the Region, the Municipality, the Fair, so we have to be able to maintain good relations”."

"In those same months (January-February 1992), chief reporter Giuliano Molossi, and in his absence his deputy Ario Gervasutti, received a phone call from Bobo Craxi, leader of the municipal council. He was furious about “insinuations” about Mario Chiesa's links with the Milanese PSI, reported by our reporters. He threatened: “After the elections on 5 April, there will be a purge, many heads will roll at Il Giornale [...]. Before I speak to your boss, I repeat that you must stop bothering us. You are the usual old-fashioned fascist, Northern League, Christian Democrat newspaper”. On the 29th, Fedele Confalonieri, Berlusconi's right-hand man, calls: he is angry because a photo of Bettino Craxi with Chiesa has been published in the news section. He asks me, in a manner uncharacteristic of his usual balanced style: “Is this sabotage against Berlusconi? But if we have to antagonise Craxi in order to keep Il Giornale, we'd better give up Il Giornale”."

"Interviewer: Mani pulite was a consequence of the fall of the Berlin Wall? Pomicino: Under its rubble lay not only the Communist Party but, thanks to the young people of Via Pal at the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, also the parties that had won the battle of history. Mani pulite was desired by the shareholder bourgeoisie led by De Benedetti. He thought he would be the new head of the future government of the country, which would bring together the financial and industrial elite of Italian capitalism with the Italian Communist Party of Achille Occhetto and Luciano Violante, which still had a strong territorial organisation."

"Di Pietro remains the symbol of a season, that of Mani Pulite, which gave hope to Milan and the whole of Italy."

"Some of them act as though they want to bar me but I walk in, throw my cards down and I'm in. My money talks."

"Anni dopo, l'ex ministro Scotti confesserà a Cirino Pomicino: "Tutto nacque da una comunicazione riservata fattami dal capo della polizia Parisi che, sulla base di un lavoro di intelligence svolto dal Sisde e supportato da informazioni confidenziali, parlava di riunioni internazionali nelle quali sarebbero state decise azioni destabilizzanti sia con attentati mafiosi sia con indagini giudiziarie nei confronti dei leaders dei partiti di governo"."

"This network unravels with the arrival of the investigations in February 1992. Parliamentary immunity, which had been abused, was revoked. The judiciary, which had provided protection, regained its role as guarantor of legality. This caused consternation, and for some time there was hope that a new era had truly begun. But the old resistance was far from defeated, as the difficulties in reforming the law on public procurement immediately demonstrated. A new strategy was on the horizon, and it found a favourable climate in Berlusconism."

"I am well aware that a judicial “truth” does not exempt us from the obligation to go further. But it almost seems that, through these explanations, we are trying to free ourselves from the burden of analysing specific facts and personal responsibilities. An old vice of our political culture resurfaces: talking about general things to avoid concrete ones. Just as the far left did, everything is attributed to the dynamics of the “system”, which is invincible in its own way. The result is either a great condemnation or a great acquittal: conclusions that are apparently antithetical but essentially coincidental; which embody a political will, even understandable, to turn the page and start a new era, but which can become an obstacle to in-depth, detailed analysis. Many of the theses mentioned resemble an alibi rather than an explanation. Some, incidentally, do not even stand up to a trivial test based on the principle of non-contradiction. It is recalled, for example, that it was impossible for the PCI to enter the government. And then the PCI is blamed for not having made possible the alternation that would have immunised the system from the virus of corruption. Since the supporters of such arguments are not stupid (or, at least, not always), it is clear that their only aim is to prevent any distinction or gradation of responsibility, lumping together government and opposition parties in a single condemnation."

"(About the investigations of the television programme Samarcanda) Our analysis is correct: Judge Di Pietro has shown that it was much worse than we imagined."

"In political terms, getting caught up in Mani Pulite means not having been able to offer any viable alternative to the Italian model of underdevelopment."

"The judges of Mani Pulite should be arrested; they are a criminal organisation with a licence to kill that aims to subvert the democratic order. (16 July 1994)"

"The system of corruption and illegal financing of the First Republic ended with Mani Pulite."

"During those years, a great social and political transformation was underway. The Christian Democrats, the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Republican Party, the Italian Democratic Socialist Party and the Italian Liberal Party were in decline. The Italian Communist Party was changing its name and nature. The Northern League was born, then Silvio Berlusconi arrived with his party. It was not Mani Pulite that caused all this; Mani Pulite was, at most, the midwife, the birth assistant."

"Mani Pulite grew enormously on the confessions of those under investigation. An investigation based not on investigations but on confessions is not a good investigation."

"Mani Pulite was like this: a container investigation, from which the various trials were opened at will by the Trio Lescano [Antonio Di Pietro, Gherardo Colombo, Pier Camillo Davigo]."

"Mani Pulite was largely played out with confessions and plea bargains. The only real trial was the Cusani trial, with Di Pietro exhibiting ultra-modern means never before seen in a courtroom, such as computer projections of diagrams. But then he would conclude with phrases like “What does that have to do with anything?”. And he won over the TV audience."

"Twenty years after Mani Pulite, there are those who refuse to accept the obvious: that Tangentopoli erupted because there were bribes."

"Behind the lights of the city, behind its desire for Europe, behind the triumphs of its fashion designers, behind its super-elegant streets, there is a powerful network of bribes and corruption that has spared nothing and no one. For at least a decade, a sort of double-breasted mafia has imposed a system of bribes everywhere."