Argentine media leaked two audio recordings attributed to Presidency Secretary Karina Milei on Friday. Although the recordings did not reveal anything particularly damning, the recent accusations that President Milei’s sister is the leader of a corruption ring prompted a swift government response.

In a post on X, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni wrote that “if the recordings are real,” the situation would pose an “unprecedented scandal.” “It would be the first time in Argentine history that a government official has been recorded inside the Casa Rosada,” he added, seemingly indicating that he knew where the recordings took place.

Diego Santilli, a PRO party member and La Libertad Avanza (LLA) deputy candidate, accused “powerful intelligence groups” and the opposition of recording the audios. “We must find those who recorded them and throw them in jail,” he said in an interview with Radio Mitre.

Adorni and Santilli’s response comes as the government is in full damage control following a flurry of leaked audios exposing an alleged corruption scheme in the state’s disability agency. The recordings are attributed to former Disability Agency head Diego Spagnuolo, who accused Karina Milei, her right-hand man Eduardo “Lule” Menem, and Lower House speaker Martín Menem of taking kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies.

The story has made headlines over the past week, eventually leading President Milei himself to deny the allegations during a campaign parade in Buenos Aires province on Wednesday. “Everything he says is a lie,” Milei said, referring to Spagnuolo. Demonstrators pelted the presidential caravan with stones, vegetables, and eggs, and he was escorted away.

Federal Judge Sebastián Casanello and prosecutor Franco Picardi are investigating the alleged bribery scheme.

What the audios say

The audios were released Friday on the Carnaval streaming channel, the same outlet that released the Spagnuolo bribery scandal recordings. A women’s voice can be heard in both clips. 

“We can’t get into a fight with each other. We have to stick together,” the voice says in one of the audio recordings. It is not immediately clear if she was speaking about the alleged corruption scandal or not.

In the second recording, she is apparently heard saying: “They don’t actually have to be here 24 hours a day. Because I arrive at Casa Rosada at 8 a.m. and leave at 11 p.m.”

Mauro Federico, host of the program that first made the audios public, said there are at least 50 more recordings of the voice allegedly belonging to Karina.

In his defense of Milei, Adorni also questioned the timing of the recordings, released just 10 days before the local Buenos Aires province elections, scheduled for September 7.

He called the incident an “orchestrated and planned disinformation campaign” aimed at “destabilizing the government and maliciously influencing the electoral process,” referencing the bribery scandal without naming it.