GOVERNMENT
Scandal reaches Lula's inner circle

President Lula (left) and Marco Aurélio Santana Ribeiro, his former personal assistant. Photo: IL
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva does not carry a cell phone and does not use messaging apps. For more than three years, the reliable way to reach him ran through Marco Aurélio Santana Ribeiro, a political scientist whom all of Brasília calls Marcola. Lula has known him for roughly 11 years.
As chief of the president's personal office, he worked…

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