Santiago Viola became a central figure within the judicial and political establishment of La Libertad Avanza. National representative of the party and trusted lawyer in the space, it is today the name promoted by Karina Milei to occupy the role of liaison with Justice, replacing the circuit that until now was managed by Santiago Caputo and his team, including the operator Sebastián Amerio. The Secretary General of the Government wants to displace that group and reorganize the entire judicial dialogue around Viola, a profile that combines political closeness, technical background and a past that generates controversies.
Viola appears as a representative of LLA in the electoral documentation and is part of the legal circle that surrounds Karina Milei since the beginning of the libertarian armed movement. Low profile and constant presence in courts, he is the one who carries out key efforts before the Electoral Justice and is considered by the President’s sister as a reliable operator to organize the legal front of the space. His promotion responds to that logic: displace traditional intermediaries and concentrate judicial representation on a lawyer who reports directly to the hard core of libertarian power.
His career includes sensitive episodes. He defended the children of Lázaro Báez, in money laundering proceedings that were emblematic of Kirchnerist corruption. He was also investigated for an alleged attempt to involve false witnesses with the aim of removing Judge Sebastián Casanello from the Báez case, although it was later dismissed. That investigation marked him: for some he was associated with the world of “operators”, for others he demonstrated the ability to move in causes of high political tension.
Another point of questioning comes from his appearance as a defender of Norma Berta Radice, sister of the repressor Jorge Radice, in a case linked to maneuvers to appropriate the property of missing persons from the former ESMA. This representation, reconstructed in judicial documents, placed him in sensitive files regarding human rights and exposed him to criticism from progressive organizations and sectors. For the ruling party, however, it is part of their experience as a criminal lawyer.
Viola, thus, goes from being a low-profile lawyer to being in the center of the board. His name synthesizes the tension between the Government’s need to professionalize its legal structure and the political burden that his history as a defender in sensitive causes carries. For Karina Milei, he is the right man to build a new relationship with Justice. For the opposition, a symbol of the contradictions of a space that promises to fight “the caste” but elects an operator accustomed to the harshest expedients of power.
