Javier Milei’s war against the Argentine media has escalated to the point of closing the doors of the Casa Rosada to all accredited journalists. This is an unprecedented decision, repudiated by all local press organizations, which comes after thousands of insults and verbal attacks by the Argentine president on journalists and the prior suspension of some accreditations for those who report on the Executive Branch. The Government justified this Thursday that it is a preventive measure for reasons of “national security” after denouncing two television journalists for illegal espionage who recorded without permission inside the official building. The announcement comes with a government hit by growing corruption scandals revealed by the media.
The Argentine Journalism Forum (Fopea) highlighted that preventing access for journalists who regularly work in the Casa Rosada is “a measure of extreme institutional gravity, as it alters the basic conditions for journalistic coverage of the main area of operation of the National Executive Power.” In a statement, Fopea noted that the decision “implies limiting society’s ability to know, understand, and control the activity of its rulers.”
For Fopea, the complaint filed by the Military House against journalists from the Todo Noticias channel who recorded unauthorized tours of the government building’s corridors “does not have a judicial resolution that determines the existence of irregular conduct.” For this reason, it maintains that it is disproportionate to withdraw access to all journalists indefinitely.
The ban on entry for journalists shows the deterioration of the Government’s relationship with the media. In Milei’s first year, in 2024, he aspired to create an “elite press room” at the government headquarters, inspired by that of the White House. Also left behind are the daily press conferences where the then spokesman, Manuel Adorni, gave sharp answers that earned him the nickname journalist tamer. Adorni, now Chief of Staff, has been in the unwanted spotlight of the media and justice for weeks. The prosecutor investigating him for alleged illicit enrichment received information this Thursday that he paid almost $9,000 in cash for luxury hotel accommodation during his family vacation on the Caribbean island of Aruba to welcome 2025. The plane tickets, also paid in cash, cost him an additional $5,800. He made that trip despite Milei’s requests for austerity to his ministers on the eve of the Christmas holidays.
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This Wednesday, Argentines learned that the Chief of Staff had committed to paying $65,000 undeclared to the intermediary who facilitated the purchase of the almost 200,000 square meter apartment where he lives in Buenos Aires, according to his statement to the Justice. Adorni bought it in November last year for a declared price of $230,000 from two retirees who lent him $200,000 so he could make the transaction. His salary, at that time, was equivalent to $2,500 per month and was his only income, according to his last sworn statement to the Anti-Corruption Office. Among the inconsistencies that the Justice is investigating is also the house in a gated community that his wife, Betina Angeletti, bought in 2024, and a private plane trip to the town of Punta del Este, Uruguay, during the long Carnival weekend.
Both Milei and his sister Karina, Secretary of the Presidency, have ordered to close ranks around Adorni and have called the accumulating revelations about him “media garbage.” Both have been photographed in recent weeks with the Chief of Staff and have published messages of support. “Beyond the operations of journalism and old politics, I know who you are and your integrity,” Karina Milei posted on X at the end of March, when it became known that Adorni’s wife had traveled with the official delegation to the United States.
Milei’s protection of his Chief of Staff clashes with the anti-corruption discourse raised by the ultra-president. In addition to the ongoing investigations into the alleged $Libra crypto scam that Milei disseminated, suspicions that medicines for the National Disability Agency were bought at inflated prices, and the generous mortgage loans granted by public banks to pro-government legislators, other scandals have been added this week. The latest of these affects the Secretary of Infrastructure Coordination of the Ministry of Economy, Carlos Frugoni, investigated for having at least five undeclared properties in the United States, according to the newspaper La Nación. Other local media raise Frugoni’s US properties to eight. The restrictions imposed on the press raise tension in one of Milei’s worst moments.
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