SAO PAULO, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s President Michel Temer was secretly recorded discussing payments of hush money to a former speaker of the house currently in prison for corruption, O Globo newspaper reported Wednesday.

Temer immediately denied the report.According to the report, which could not be immediately verified, an executive from the meatpacking giant JBS, Joesley Batista, met with Temer on March 7.During the meeting, the report said, Batista recorded himself telling Temer that he was paying money to disgraced ex-speaker of the lower house Eduardo Cunha to buy his silence. Cunha has been found guilty of taking millions of dollars in bribes in Brazil’s giant Petrobras oil company embezzlement scandal.According to the account, Temer told Batista: “You need to keep doing that.”Temer’s office issued a statement saying: “President Michel Temer never solicited payments to obtain the silence of former deputy Eduardo Cunha.”Globo did not say how it got the information, which it said came from a plea bargain between Batista and his brother Wesley with prosecutors.The report immediately sparked calls from leftist opponents of Temer for his impeachment.Temer took over last year after the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff, a political earthquake to a large extent engineered by the then-powerful Cunha.