decision of the President of the Supreme Court, Ricardo Lewandowski, authorizing an audit requested by the defense. Lira designated a board consisting of three experts, granting to prosecution, defense and Senators 48 hours to formulate questions and indicate technical assistants, as well as 24 hours to refute the appointed experts, fixing also a ten-day deadline for the completion of the audit. On 14 June, the first defense witnesses testified. They were former Secretary of Planning and Strategic Investment, Gilson Bittencourt, and former Secretary of Agricultural Policy of the Ministry of Agriculture, André Nassar. Bittencourt said that there was no credit operation between the Government and public banks and also denied that there was a delay in paying interest to public banks in 2015. According to him, the debit to be paid in 2016 came due only at the time of collection by the banks, every six months. Nassar said that the Bank of Brazil had an interest in "circulating money", by lending to producers, and even in getting the transfers delayed by the government. He also said that, as Secretary of Agricultural Policy and from the point of view of the agricultural sector, this was important to avoid a disruption that, had it occurred, would have generated serious outcomes to the sector. On 15 June, former Deputy Secretary of the Federal Budget Office, Cilair Rodrigues de Abreu, former Secretary of Budget and Administration for the Ministry of Social Security, José Geraldo França Diniz, and Consultant for the Ministry of Planning, Budget, and Management, Walter Baere de Araújo Filho, all testified. Rodrigues said that the understanding of the TCU before 2015 had always been that the future target could be used by the budget secretary in the publication of their reports. This understanding did not change, he said, until 2015. Diniz testified that due to the complexity of supplemental budget decrees, the documents are reviewed by experts and that while Rousseff signed, it would have been impossible for herself to analyze in detail 200 pages of attachments, calculations and spreadsheets. Walter Baere said that the TCU had never issued a formal opinion concerning the illegality of supplemental budget decrees by the President, and that the TCU had the specific legal duty to raise an alert whenever there is a possibility of the non-attainment of fiscal targets. Former Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Education, , former Assistant Executive Secretary of the