Prostitutes, a porn star and a bouncer - Spanish PM Sanchez embroiled in corruption scandal
Now his Socialist party (PSOE) is engulfed in a corruption scandal involving prostitutes, public contracts, kickbacks, secret recordings, a former nightclub bouncer and a porn star.
His wife faces a separate investigation into allegations of influence-peddling, and there are claims that party officials created a job especially for his musician brother David.
Mr Sánchez's enemies call him the 'dog' because they say he is impossible to get rid of, but the graft scandal is now threatening to finally bring him down.
Europe's most influential Left-wing leader is well aware of the risks, and the irony, of his invidious position.
Mr Sánchez ousted his scandal-hit conservative predecessor, Mariano Rajoy, by winning a vote of no confidence against him in 2018.
Spain's National Court had ruled that Mr Rajoy's Partido Popular (PP) was guilty of 'institutional corruption'.
Mr Sánchez promised a new era of 'democratic regeneration' as he cobbled together a coalition of communists, separatists and former terrorist organisation Eta's political wing to grab power.
His grip on Spain's government has not slipped in the years since, despite the recent massive blackouts, deadly floods in Valencia, or the allegations about his family.
His taste for woke politics has enraged the Spanish Right and he has clashed with Donald Trump and refused to commit to a new Nato defence spending target.
Such controversies bounce off the bulletproof prime minister thanks to the deeply polarised world of Spanish politics.
None of the rag-tag bunch of Leftists propping up his government want to be the one to break ranks for fear of handing power to a coalition of the PP and the far-Right Vox.
But the pressure is building on the handsome Madrileño after weeks in which his Socialist party has been roiled by seedy revelation after grubby exposé.
It is the involvement of sex workers and porn stars that has particularly appalled his woke allies, who so far, have stopped short of collapsing the government.
But Yolanda Díaz, the deputy prime minister and leader of far-Left Sumar, and her ministers pointedly left their front-bench seats in Congress empty when Mr Sanchez fought for his political life, trading blows with opposition leaders on Wednesday.
It was a sign that the pressure was beginning to tell after months of the spotlight shining on PSOE party cadres and some of Mr Sánchez's closest comrades.
Santos Cerdán, a long-time close ally of Mr Sánchez resigned as party secretary last week.
A police report revealed his alleged involvement in charging companies for accessing public works contracts in his home region of Navarre and elsewhere.
Mr Sánchez was humiliatingly forced to apologise for being 'mistaken' about Mr Cerdán.
He had backed him, despite a flurry of rumours after criminal investigations were opened last year into his Navarran associate, Koldo García.
Mr Garcia is a former nightclub bouncer and chauffeur who worked his way up the Socialist party ladder and became a key aide to José Luis Ábalos.
Mr Ábalos, along with Mr Cerdán, backed Mr Sánchez from party outsider to winner in two primary processes a decade ago, playing a key role in his ascent to power.
He is suspected by a supreme court judge of helping himself to hundreds of thousands of euros in kickbacks from companies during his spell as transport and infrastructure minister between 2018 and 2021.
Ábalos was also Socialist party secretary until Mr Sánchez dropped him from the post and the cabinet in 2021.
The prime minister insisted on Wednesday that the Cerdán crisis was a mere 'anecdote'.
But secret recordings underpinning the investigation make painful listening because of his old comrades discussing and comparing the merits of sex workers.
Mr Sánchez made the fight against sexism in macho Spain a touchstone of his government, and the tapes are a major embarrassment for a politician with a sweeping feminist agenda.
'This disgusts us. The sexist terms expressed are absolutely incompatible with the feminist values of this party,' Mr Sánchez said.
A source close to the government told The Telegraph that Mr Sánchez's decision to suddenly drop Mr Ábalos before the corruption probes began was 'due to his proclivity for prostitutes'.
One morning in early June, Mr Ábalos's home in Valencia was searched by police.
They found the former minister in the company of a woman named only as Anaís, a 32-year-old model.
She was later revealed by the newspaper El Mundo to be a porn star using the name Letizia Hilton.
According to reports, Mr Ábalos made a failed attempt to sneak a hard drive out of the house under the noses of police investigators by hiding it in his female companion's pocket when officers allowed her out to walk the dog.
Police investigation
Mr García, commonly referred to by all as simply 'Koldo', is reported to have recorded and filed all of his conversations over more than a decade of running errands for top Socialists.
Police are examining the contents of four memory sticks full of recordings and have reportedly recovered others he attempted to erase but which were recovered from the cloud.
In one, he says: 'I'm fed up. They treat me like a stupid small-town boy: I'm very coarse, I'm capable of breaking a guy's legs just because they ask me to (…) But with time, you learn.'
Who has recorded whom saying what has become key in the case, and there is paranoia among Socialist ranks as to what files kept by Mr Ábalos and his sidekick Mr García could contain.
Sources with access to the police investigation have told The Telegraph that police reports are being compiled on at least one other minister over their Ábalos connection.
Mr Sánchez has insisted that the Socialist party is not corrupt and has ordered a fresh external audit of the party's finances.
A PP source told The Telegraph that leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo is now sure that 'it is just a matter of time' before Mr Sánchez falls.
That will depend on the next batch of leaked recordings and whether a strong connection can be built by investigators between Mr Cerdán's side deals and party financing.
Mr Sanchez's rivals are hoping to do to what he did to Mariano Rajoy seven years ago.
Mr Feijóo accused Mr Sánchez of being 'deeply ensnared in a corruption scheme' during their fiery clash in the Spanish parliament.
'No matter how much you disguise yourself, you are not the victim. We Spaniards are the victim,' Mr Feijóo told Mr Sánchez, before mocking his refusal to call early elections 'because you know you will lose'.
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