BRAZILIAN President Dilma Rousseff’s lawyer told the senate on Wednesday evening that moves to impeach her were part of a corruption cover-up.

Jose Eduardo Cardozo presented 370 pages of defence papers for his client, who was suspended by congress last month over allegations of borrowing money to raise public spending in an election year — a political peccadillo of all recent leaders.

He pointed to the recent spate of leaked recordings of figures in Michel Temer’s interim government discussing how to scupper the “Car Wash” bribery probe at state oil firm Petrobras, in which many of them are implicated — notably congressonial speaker Eduardo Cunha.

“Several of the statements show that the impeachment attempt occurred not because there is a crime,” Mr Cardozo said, “but because, actually, there was a concern from several segments of the political class over the Operation Car Wash investigation.”

Two ministers have been forced to quit in as many weeks over the tapes leaked to Brazil’s media, which Mr Cardozo said showed clear indications of a “strong, co-ordinated component” in the legislative coup against Ms Rousseff.

“That, to us, reinforces the notion of misuse of power that in the beginning we attributed, solely and exclusively, to lower house president Eduardo Cunha,” he said.

Also on Wednesday, about 1,000 demonstrators from the Homeless Workers Movement clashed with police in front of the presidency’s regional office in Sao Paulo while protesting at cuts to low-income housing schemes.

The interim government has already embarked on an unmandated programme of slashing social spending.