The “Christ shield” is a mystical pentacle of high magic, designed for protection from negative energies and the evil eye. It represents “the name of Jesus in heaven”, in Hebrew, and is often used as an object of discharge, for physical healing and to protect the home. It is usually worn attached to the body, in the form of a chain or bracelet, and some exorcists even use it in their fights against evil. In fact, specialists in the esoteric world assure that for it to work it must be used in total secrecy, without anyone finding out. This is not, at all, the case of Manuel Adorni.
It was given to the Chief of Staff by Karina Milei, a veteran in the art of magical sciences, someone who has commissioned energy cleansing at the Casa Rosada and who has different stones in her office to protect herself from esoteric attacks. No one who has dealt with Adorni before coming to the Government accounts for this mystical inclination, so it would not be an exaggeration to think that the former tweeter is not so interested in the supernatural powers of the “Christ shield” but rather has very earthly inclinations: leaving that painting in the middle of a photo that he uploaded to his networks – receiving the head of the Rural Society in his office – to cling tooth and nail to the position he currently holds, and which hangs by a thread. Or, rather, that it depends on the patience of the general secretary, which has already shown that it is not infinite.
End? On March 8, Radio Jay published the photo of Adorni at the grave of the Chabad Lubavich rabbi. It was there where the whole journey began: journalist Emiliano Russo detected Betina Angeletti, the wife of the Chief of Staff, on that trip. Ten days later the situation was much more serious. Another private flight had joined the presidential flight with his wife to Punta del Este along with a friend, journalist Marcelo Grandío, whose production company had three contracts with public TV and a program on Radio Nacional (both media outlets depend on Jefatura). As if that were not enough, the different versions and inconsistencies regarding the payment for that coastal getaway – which later, between the invoice for the outward trip published by journalist Sebastián Lacunza and what the pilot who sold the return trip declared in court, was found to amount to 9 thousand dollars – added heat to the matter. On March 18, representative Marcela Pagano, who entered Congress for La Libertad Avanza but was later identified as an enemy by “El Jefe” and expelled, revealed that Adorni had bought a house in the country Indio Cua in Exaltación de la Cruz.
In those days Adorni had two key meetings. One was on March 19 with the President, at the Quinta de Olivos. There, in addition to offering his resignation, the official swore to Milei that there was no more sin to reveal. Then he published a photo on his networks, where he mocked – true to his style – those who announced his departure from office. The day before he had had a similar conversation with the government cutter, the same one who gave him the esoteric painting.
However, reality prevailed over Adorni’s will. On March 20, this medium published that the Chief of Staff had moved to a house on Miró Street, in the Caballito neighborhood, which made the wheel of the scandal turn again. Days later he himself confirmed in a failed press conference that that department belonged to him. The newspaper La Nación published the details. Adorni and his wife bought the place in November 2025, at a price well below the market price: 200 thousand dollars for a 199 square meter apartment, when the meter in that area is around 2 thousand dollars. The story has a very particular addition: according to what is recorded in the Real Estate Registry, Adorni managed to pay for that apartment thanks to a loan of US$ 200,000, 50 percent from Beatriz Viegas, a 72-year-old retiree, and the other 50 from Claudia Sbabo, 64, an employee of a publishing house. But something does not close, and not only the incredible generosity of the elderly ladies: before La Nación, Viegas denied even knowing Adorni. Added to this are the contracts of his wife’s company, an ontological coaching that in July 2024 opened +BE consultancy, with companies such as YPF. The Chief of Staff is going to need much more than an esoteric amulet to change his luck.
Maze. The big question, at the close of this edition, is how long Adorni will last in office. The public birthday that Karina Milei organized, with the Grenadier regiment playing ABBA songs in the Patio de las Palmeras, once again fueled doubts: the general secretary gathered her entire troop there – the Menem, Pilar Ramírez and also Diego Santilli – but not Adorni. Although in the red circle several people read that the official’s absence from the celebration was a way of letting go of his hand, internally Karinism said the opposite: they hid him to keep him away from ridicule and the public eye with the idea of protecting him. On the one hand, that seems to be the general secretary’s modus operandi – when the bribery scandal occurred in Andis she did the same with “Lule” Menem – and on the other, versions are growing that the official is affected “personally”, an unrest that would also have been increased by the demonstrations that took place at the door of his house in Caballito and also in the country.
Another reading also appears. It is one that indicates that Karina Milei feels partly responsible for the entire affair. There are those who know that side who claim that it was she herself, in person, who invited Angeletti to get on the presidential flight and that it is she, and only she, who decides who gets on and who does not get on that very restricted place. The two women would have apparently developed an intimate connection, which would also explain why Adorni’s wife had taken a ticket to New York and then ended up traveling in the official delegation.
The weight of her own conscience is not, in any case, Karina Milei’s main problem. The general secretary, who until a few years ago tried to make ends meet by mixing tarot sessions with online sales of cakes, does not have too many human personnel that she trusts to occupy all the State’s ravioli. In fact, as this media reported, the sister tried to take over the SIDE but when her first choice, lawyer Jorge Anzorreguy, told her no, she had to stop: she did not have another person on hand to take the Intelligence Secretariat away from the caputism.
The same thing happens with Adorni. Who could replace his right hand? It is a question that takes on another depth when it is taken into account that in just over a year the candidates for, in this case, the City must be defined. Releasing the Chief of Staff would also be equivalent to being left without a concrete alternative to go in search of Jorge Macri’s chair. That is to say: it would almost mean giving up in the face of the increasing pressure from Patricia Bullrich to occupy that place. In La Rosada, some understood the senator’s birthday gift for her sister as a poisonous dart: a huge purse. Close to the former minister, they do not hide the exhaustion they feel at having to put their face to the public defense of Adorni (see box).
On the other hand, Santiago Caputo is convinced that, sooner rather than later, the Chief of Staff will end up leaving his place. Although a priori it would seem that the departure of a pure Karinist like Adorni would be something for the strategist, hit by the internal situation, to celebrate, in reality it is quite the opposite: the “Wizard of the Kremlin” has good personal harmony with the tweeter, there are people of his who work in the Chief of Staff and even, they say from both sides, he helped as much as he could to prepare the conference at La Rosada. Not only that, but if Adorni leaves, there is no guarantee that whoever replaces him will be better for his internal stability. The Menems are the main fear, although, when consulted, the strategist suggests that he thinks Santilli will actually end up occupying that position.
The coin is in the air. An old headache for Adorni also appears: a tender suspected of overpricing in the former Télam, for a contract of more than 1,000 million pesos for a cleaning and security company. The area depends on him, in addition to the fact that one of the directors, Pablo Ciocchini, is a close friend of the Chief of Staff. Will it be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?
