President Milei said on Saturday that he is weighing legal action over press coverage of the $LIBRA crypto case, a day after a federal judge dismissed it and he called five journalists corrupt.
At a dinner of the libertarian think tank Fundación Faro on Friday night, hours after the ruling, Milei opened by asking who would compensate him “for a year, eight months and nine days of lies, slander and insults that sought to stain my good name and honor.” He called the case a “tremendous political and media operation” with “coup-seeking aims” and said: “They tried a coup d’état by institutional means and couldn’t, because we’re honest, because we’re clean.”
He said the La Nación media group and its “henchmen” used the case “to extort the government in exchange for saving themselves and to evade taxes,” and named five journalists, among them La Nación’s Hugo Alconada Mon and Carlos Pagni, as “journalists on the take, corrupt, mercenaries of the lie.”
On Saturday, in a radio interview, Milei was asked whether he would take legal action. “I have to evaluate it with my lawyers because it is a scandal of massive proportions. It is extortion,” he said. He accused the newspaper’s director, Fernán Saguier, of covering for Alconada Mon, and said the paper had a tax debt and used its coverage to pressure him.
Later in the speech Milei said: “Know that the sons of bitches in Argentina will have no mercy. Because, as Adam Smith said, having mercy on the sons of bitches is being unfair to the good. And here the good have to do well; those who have to burn at the stake are the sons of bitches.” The official transcript does not say whom he meant. Cristian Ritondo, who leads the allied PRO party’s deputies and attended the dinner, said Milei was returning to an idea of Adam Smith and “did not ask for journalists to be burned.”
The Association of Argentine Press Entities, known as ADEPA, rejected what it called “new attacks” on journalists. “Rebuttal, refutation and clarification should never be replaced by insult and offense in a democratic society that tolerates dissent and criticism,” it said in a post on X. The Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA) called the remarks an “unprecedented escalation” and said the stake reference legitimizes violence against reporters.
IDEA, a business association, said public debate should proceed “without insults or disqualifications” and that “those who were elected to govern must act responsibly and contribute to a respectful public debate.” Silvana Giudici, a deputy in Milei’s own party, said journalists’ work is to investigate, disagree and publish with full freedom.
The ruling by Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi, issued at the request of prosecutor Eduardo Taiano, found that the facts did not amount to a crime. It can be appealed.
