Records

Right-wing presidential candidate says he will release personal records if his opponent, President Lula, meets his conditions.

Brazilian right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro has set out steep conditions for disclosing his personal records in response to a challenge from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his opponent in Sunday’s election run-off.

Bolsonaro’s campaign has said it will release the data Lula requested if the president expands his own pledge to disclose his personal records to include those of his advisers, security staff and records from companies held by Lula’s children.

Lula said on Tuesday that he would share his bank, tax and telephone records, along with those of his family, if Bolsonaro would agree to do the same.

His campaign submitted conditional authorisation to Brazil’s electoral court to release the president’s personal data.

Camilo Santana, a senator and representative of Lula’s campaign, told journalists that ⁠⁠Lula has agreed to Bolsonaro’s new demands, and the president’s would file an official response with the court on Thursday morning.

Corruption scandal

The call from Lula on Tuesday came as both campaigns try to navigate the fallout of an explosive corruption scandal involving disgraced banker Daniel Vorcaro, which has implicated influential individuals and institutions across Brazil.

Bolsonaro, who narrowly leads Lula in the polls, is under investigation over alleged corruption and money laundering related to an investment he allegedly ⁠⁠sought from Vorcaro. He is also under investigation in a separate probe over alleged money laundering.

The presidential hopeful denies any wrongdoing.

Brazil’s president is also linked to a corruption scandal, via his son Fabio Luis Lula da Silva, a businessman, who is accused being investigated over allegations that he unlawfully helped another businessman to gain access to the government.

Lula’s eldest son is also being investigated over his links to a businessman detained under a pension fraud probe.

Lula’s son denies the allegations, and the president has said his ‌‌son ‌‌would be treated like any other citizen.

On Monday, the GMCA released a statement about Burnham’s meetings with Man City in his role as mayor for the region for almost a decade.

The statement said he had a formal meeting with Al Mubarak in October 2021 at the UK Government’s Global Investment Summit, arranged by the Department for International Trade; and that he met the club chairman “informally in the stands” at a testimonial match in 2019 for former player Vincent Kompany.

It also said that “in his capacity as mayor, he was a guest of Manchester City at home matches on a small number of occasions”.

But the statement did not specify that this referred to, external two hospitality dinners he had with the Manchester City chairman at separate matches.

A previous GMCA register of declarations for Burnham, seen by the BBC, detailed a “dinner with [then-Manchester City Council leader] Richard Leese and Chair of Man City” for an Everton match at the Etihad stadium in August 2017, valued at £300 for hospitality.

Below is another entry for “dinner with the Chairman at the Man City/Man Utd derby at the Etihad” in April 2018, valued at approximately £699.

Burnham previously declared those dinners, alongside a £150 pair of tickets to see Ed Sheeran perform at the stadium in May 2018.

But the register of declarations has since been deleted from the GMCA website, as first reported by The Sun. The BBC understands it is the authority’s policy to only publish entries from the current mayoral term.

BBC News has asked GMCA for more details about this policy – given its website has entries dating back to 2022, despite the current mayoral term beginning in 2024.

Downing Street has defended the two dinners with Man City’s chairman, saying this was hospitality received at home games, which had been declared, rather than separate meetings with the club chairman.

But political pressure on Burnham to be clearer about any former discussions with Man City is continuing to mount.

Tory shadow sports minister Louie French said: “Andy Burnham promised the country and House of Commons full transparency on his dealings with Manchester City.

“This was essential after his inappropriate intervention into football.”

And Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick said “this saga stinks” as he accused Burnham of having apparently “concealed his extensive links to Man City’s owners”.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has demanded for several days that No 10 release all details of meetings between the prime minister and senior figures at the club.

Burnham told the Rest Is Politics podcast last week he was “happy” to do this and would “quite clearly put out there everything that I have done working with them in my previous role as Mayor of Greater Manchester”.

“None of it is recent, actually, in terms of the meetings I had. I only had one significant meeting, actually, and that was in 2021.”

Asked at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday whether anyone at the club had raised the charges they were facing with him or his team, Burnham said: “They did not raise those issues with me.”

With the PM continuing to face pressure on the issue, he told MPs he was happy for “everything to be set out in full”, referring to the GMCA’s statement as “a full statement of my key dealings with the owners of Manchester City Football Club”.

When asked by reporters why the statement did not refer to the two dinners, and what the difference is between “everything” and “key dealings”, the PM’s press secretary referred back to the GMCA statement.

The list of meetings, which was published by the GMCA on Monday, did not include detail on what was discussed. The BBC has asked GMCA why the two dinners were not specifically mentioned.

In September Man City – which has dominated the top flight of English football for years – was found guilty by an independent commission of breaching Premier League financial regulations.

The commission found City had broken rules over a nine-year period between 2009 and 2018 by creating “sham” contracts with commercial partners to secretly funnel more than £830m into their football operations.

Sanctions are yet to be announced and City, which denies any wrongdoing, has lodged an appeal against the verdict.

Earlier this month, Sir Richard Leese – who was head of Manchester City Council for 25 years until 2021 – defended a decade-old deal between the council and Man City owners Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG).

Under the partnership between the authority and the company, which is linked to the United Arab Emirates royal family, land was leased to ADUG at “below comparable rates”, according to a University of Sheffield report.

The Trump administration argues that DOGE is exempt from freedom of information requirements.

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in a watchdog’s lawsuit seeking public records about trillionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The high court is intervening on Tuesday for a second time in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) in Washington’s case, which seeks access to DOGE records from its operations in the early days of US President Donald Trump’s second term. The Trump administration asked the court to hear the case.

Last year, the high court reined in a district court’s order for the government to produce DOGE-related records to CREW. The high court’s conservative majority concluded in June 2025 that US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled too broadly in ordering documents to be turned over to the group.

CREW claims DOGE is a federal agency and therefore is subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The Trump administration argues that DOGE is exempt from FOIA’s requirements as a presidential advisory body.

Cooper ruled in CREW’s favour and ordered expedited processing of the group’s records request. An appeals court panel also sided with CREW.

The Trump administration claims the panel ignored the Supreme Court’s direction to consider separation-of-powers concerns and intruded on the “autonomy and confidentiality” of presidential advisers.

“Subjecting advisory bodies to intrusive discovery triggers the very concerns that Congress sought to avoid by excluding presidential advisory bodies from FOIA’s reach,” US Department of Justice lawyers wrote.

The administration also says the appeals court impermissibly authorised the plaintiffs to take a sworn deposition of DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason.

CREW says the appeals court fully complied with the Supreme Court’s previous order. The group also asserts that the public has a right to know how DOGE helped the administration carry out a sweeping overhaul of government operations in 2025.

“Undisputed facts in the public record — including the President’s statements — confirmed that (DOGE) was wielding enormous independent authority across the federal government,” CREW lawyers wrote.

In a statement Tuesday, CREW lawyer Nikhel Sus said the lower courts have uniformly ruled that it is entitled to records that could help the court determine whether DOGE wields the type of authority that would make it subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

“We will continue to pursue transparency for the American people, who deserve to know the details of the Trump Administration’s efforts to unilaterally remake the federal government,” Sus said in the statement.

DOGE said it had slashed tens of billions of dollars in expenditures, but its claims were difficult for outside financial experts to verify.

Federal auditors found that some of DOGE’s reported savings across contract, grant and ⁠lease terminations were incorrect, lacked supporting evidence or included terminations that were already under way when DOGE was established, according to ⁠a report by the Government Accountability Office.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear arguments in a watchdog’s lawsuit seeking public records about trillionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The high court is intervening for a second time in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s case, which seeks access to DOGE records from its operations in the early days of President Trump’s second term. The Trump administration asked the court to hear the case.

Last year, the high court reined in a district court’s order for the government to produce DOGE-related records to CREW. The high court’s conservative majority concluded in June 2025 that U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled too broadly in ordering documents to be turned over to the group.

CREW claims DOGE is a federal agency and therefore is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The Trump administration argues that DOGE is exempt from FOIA’s requirements as a presidential advisory body.

Cooper ruled in CREW’s favor and ordered expedited processing of the group’s records request. An appeals court panel also sided with CREW.

The Trump administration claims the panel ignored the Supreme Court’s direction to consider separation-of-powers concerns and intruded on the “autonomy and confidentiality” of presidential advisers.

“Subjecting advisory bodies to intrusive discovery triggers the very concerns that Congress sought to avoid by excluding presidential advisory bodies from FOIA’s reach,” Justice Department attorneys wrote.

The administration also says the appeals court impermissibly authorized the plaintiffs to take a sworn deposition of DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason.

CREW says the appeals court fully complied with the Supreme Court’s previous order. The group also asserts that the public has a right to know how DOGE helped the administration carry out a sweeping overhaul of government operations in 2025.

“Undisputed facts in the public record — including the President’s statements — confirmed that (DOGE) was wielding enormous independent authority across the federal government,” its attorneys wrote.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.