BRASILIA, April 12, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Lawmakers vote on the impeachment of the Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff during a session of the parliamentary committee at the Chamber of the Deputies in Brasilia, Brazil, on April 11, 2016. A Brazilian congressional commission recommended impeachment against President Dilma Rousseff in a vote on Monday. The commission voted 38 to 27 to support the impeachment, setting the tone for the full lower house to vote on Sunday whether Rousseff should face trial. (Xinhua/AGENCIA ESTADO)

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 18 -- Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Monday expressed indignation in her first interview after the lower house of parliament voted to open an impeachment process against her.

The process lacked legal basis and she did not commit the crime of fiscal responsibility of which she has been accused, said Rousseff.

The Rousseff government claimed that the fiscal maneuvers of which the president is accused did not consist in a crime of fiscal responsibility and that the impeachment process resulting from that basis is in fact a coup attempt.

Rousseff said that she was disappointed at the fact that the actual accusation was not discussed during the entire session in the Chamber of Deputies.

"Injustice always occurs when the defense process is smashed and when, in an absurd manner, first someone is accused of something that is not a crime and then no one refers to the problem," she said.

The president also claimed that the fiscal maneuvers were practiced by past presidents and were never considered illegal.

"I feel indignation and injustice ... Those acts were based in technical reports and none of them directly benefits me. These are not acts through which I got rich illicitly," she said.

As the chamber opened the impeachment process on Sunday, the impeachment will then head to the Senate.

From the moment the Senate accepts the impeachment process, the president is temporarily removed and Vice President Michel Temer becomes interim president. He is considered one of the masterminds of the impeachment process.