Despite hugely embarrassing bribery allegations, Temer had been expected to survive. But the ease of his victory was a surprise at a time when Brazil is at the height of its biggest ever anti-graft investigation, dubbed Car Wash.
The lower house of Congress needed a two-thirds majority to authorize a trial in the Supreme Court, while Temer needed only one third, or 172 deputies, either to support him or to abstain and get the charge shelved.
He quickly reached that in a process where lawmakers voted one by one, making short, often emotional statements live on national television.
Voting was still continuing for formal confirmation of the result, but Temer had clearly scored a remarkable escape.
A deeply unpopular veteran of the ruling center-right PMDB party, Temer is accused of taking bribes from a meatpacking industry executive. He is the first sitting president to face a criminal charge.
If Congress had authorized the trial and the Supreme court accepted it, he would have been suspended for 180 days and the speaker of the lower house would have become interim president.
Leftist opponents were hoping the scandal would sink Temer and halt economic austerity reforms that have prompted violent protests, but which Temer says will rescue the economy after a two-year recession.
The left also wanted revenge for his rise to power a year ago, when his allies in Congress ejected leftist president Dilma Rousseff in an impeachment trial for breaking budget rules. Temer, her vice president in a shaky coalition, immediately took over.
A woman holds fake Brazilian bank notes wearing a human billboard of President Michel Temer with a message that reads in Portuguese: "I buy votes" (AAP). Source: AAP
Wednesday's debate was interrupted repeatedly by yelling and occasional scuffles, illustrating divisions across Brazil.
At one point, opposition deputies fought a Temer supporter who was brandishing an inflatable doll showing former president and leftist icon Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in prison garb. Temer opponents also showered fake dollar bills showing the president's face.
The escape does not mean the end of Temer's problems. Expectations are that top prosecutor Rodrigo Janot could file at least one more criminal charge, including for obstruction of justice, in the coming weeks.
Temer was due to make a statement later, the presidential palace said.
In the current charge, Temer is alleged to have agreed to receive millions of dollars in bribes from the JBS meatpacking giant.
Car Wash prosecutors say the alleged arrangement was typical of systemic bribery and embezzlement at the top of Brazilian politics and big business. Scores of lawmakers, eight ministers and ex-president Lula have all fallen into the Car Wash crosshairs.
What was different this time was that Temer himself was targeted.
In the most damning evidence, a close aide was filmed by police running through Sao Paulo with a suitcase stuffed with the equivalent of $150,000 in Brazilian reais -- money that the prosecutor says was being delivered to Temer.
House of Representatives during the vote on whether Brazilian President Michel Temer should face trial for alleged corruption (Getty Images). Source: AFP
In a separate investigation, prosecutors cite a secretly recorded late-night meeting between Temer and one of JBS's owners, Joesley Batista. In the recording, Temer allegedly is heard authorizing hush money payments to a onetime senior politician convicted of corruption, Eduardo Cunha.
Batista gave prosecutors the recording as part of his cooperation in a plea deal, one of the many that Car Wash investigators have used to build graft cases.
Temer has denied bribe-taking and says the secret recording does not include anything incriminating.
He has proved a canny operator in Brazil's toxic political landscape, presenting himself as a success in leading market reforms aimed at jump starting the recession-crippled economy.
And unlike Rousseff, who was abandoned by many of her own allies, Temer shored up his coalition with political patronage and support from business interests.
Eurasia Group analysts said that with a big victory he would not only have a good chance of riding out further charges but will help him in negotiations with Congress on passing unpopular cuts to the generous pension system and other reforms.
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