A federal court has rejected former Senator Edgardo Kueider’s writ to void the Upper House session in which he was expelled from Congress over corruption allegations. 

The Kueider case has deepened the rift between President Javier Milei, who questioned the legal validity of the session, and his vice, who enabled the debate.

On December 4, Kueider, a Peronist lawmaker who had begun to vote with the government, was arrested in Paraguay with over US$200,000 of undeclared cash while crossing the border from Brazil. Last week, senators voted to expel Kueider by a margin of 60 to six, with one abstention.

On Friday, the federal administrative judge Enrique Lavié Pico did not grant the writ filed by Kueider, stating that the Senate had respected its constitutional powers when it held the vote to expel him Like Milei, Kueider’s lawyer had argued the session was null because the President was abroad during the vote, meaning that Vice President Victoria Villarruel was formally acting as president, and therefore not entitled to lead the session. 

In his ruling, Lavié Pico said that Villaruel’s participation in the session did not influence the result and that no senators had objected to her presiding over the debate.

The loss of Kueider’s support could affect the La Libertad Avanza administration’s ability to pass legislation: the vote on Milei’s Ley Bases, for example, was tied in the Senate, with Villarruel breaking the tie in favor of the government as the Upper House’s leader. Kueider’s seat was granted to Stefania Cora, a member of the Unión por la Patria (UxP) opposition who belongs to Máximo Kirchner’s organization La Cámpora. 

Also on Friday, federal judge Sandra Arroyo Salgado ordered Kueider’s office in the Senate to be searched. Arroyo Salgado is investigating the former lawmaker for alleged illicit enrichment, abuse of authority, breach of duties as a public official, passive and active bribery, negotiations incompatible with the exercise of public functions, influence peddling, and money laundering.