SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — For the first time in Costa Rica’s history, a sitting president defended himself Friday before three lawmakers considering a petition to lift his immunity so he can be prosecuted on corruption charges.
President Rodrigo Chaves said the effort was an attempt at political revenge by the country’s attorney general and magistrates of the Supreme Court, who requested he be stripped of his immunity.
They allege that Chaves pressured a producer who had been awarded a contract by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration to give a portion of that money to a former campaign adviser.
Chaves denied the allegations. He pointed to other long-running corruption investigations in Costa Rica that continue without resolution, as well as drug traffickers who pass through the courts without punishment.
Leaving the Legislative Assembly, Chaves addressed a group of supporters, saying opposition lawmakers “staged a ridiculous case to carry out a judicial coup d’etat, to convince (people) I was a scoundrel.”
The panel of three lawmakers now have to put together a report to present to the full Congress, which will vote at a still unknown date on whether Chaves should lose his immunity or not.
Chaves, a conservative economist, ran an outsider’s campaign in 2022 despite having briefly served as finance minister in the administration of outgoing President Carlos Alvarado.
National elections are scheduled for Feb. 1, but Costa Rica does not allow presidential reelection.
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Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves speaks next to lawyer Jose Miguel Villalobos before a legislative committee considering a request from the Supreme Court to lift his immunity so he can stand trial on corruption charges in San Jose, Costa Rica, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Diaz)
NEW YORK (AP) — A surging stock market and a flurry of deal making padded the profits of Wall Street's two big investment banks, which both saw a double-digit jump in profits in the fourth quarter.
Goldman Sachs's net earnings rose 12% from a year earlier, posting a profit of $4.62 billion, or $14.01 a share. Meanwhile Morgan Stanley said it earned $4.4 billion, or $2.68 per share, compared to a profit of $3.71 billion, or $2.22 per share, compared to a year earlier.
Wall Street has been bolstered by the Trump administration's deregulatory policies, which has led corporations to seek out mergers and acquisitions, as well as the surge of investor interest in artificial intelligence companies and those who stand to benefit from the mass adoption of technologies like ChatGPT.
Fourth-quarter investment fee revenues over at Goldman were up 25% year-over-year and Morgan Stanley saw a 47% jump in revenue in its investment banking division. Both banks said their investment fee backlog, which is a signal of how much deal making is still pending that banks are working on, increased significantly in the fourth quarter.
Goldman and Morgan's results reflect the strong earnings out of the other big banks that reported their results this week. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup all saw jumps in fourth-quarter profits, but their results were dampened by the ongoing tensions that Wall Street is having with the White House over the issue of the independence of the Federal Reserve and President Donald Trump's interest in capping credit card interest rates at 10%.
Along with a strong investment banking performance, Goldman Sachs also agreed to sell off its Apple Card credit card portfolio to JPMorgan Chase last week, effectively exiting its brief experiment in consumer banking. The bank sold the credit card portfolio at a discount to JPMorgan, a sign of how desperately Goldman wanted to exit the business and put the Apple Card behind it.
This story has been corrected to show that Morgan Stanley's investment banking revenues rose 47%, not 22%.
FILE - Electronic signage is shown at Morgan Stanley headquarters, Thursday, March 4, 2021 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 13, 2016, file photo, the logo for Goldman Sachs appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
