Bolsonaro: Chef at Revenue had a secret agenda at Planalto – 03/13/2023 – Power

The then head of intelligence at the Federal Revenue went to the Planalto Palace on the eve of starting an illegal investigation into confidential data of Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) opponents, in 2019, and returned to the place on the day he concluded the work, going specifically to the office of Augusto Heleno, minister of the Institutional Security Office of the Presidency of the Republic.

These days, there is no record on Bolsonaro’s or General Heleno’s official public agenda of a commitment to Ricardo Pereira Feitosa, who coordinated the Research and Investigation sector of the Tax Authorities from May to September 2019.

Spreadsheets of the Planalto entrance and exit system, obtained by Sheet via the Access to Information Act, show that the then head of intelligence at the Revenue entered the site for the first time on July 9, 2019, the first year of the Bolsonaro administration (2019-2022). The documents, however, do not state the specific destination within the palace.

The following day, July 10, 2019, Feitosa made the first illegal accesses to the Revenue’s databases and copied confidential tax data from the then Attorney General of Rio Eduardo Gussem (coordinator of the investigations in the “cracks” case, whose main target was Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the president), former minister Gustavo Bebianno and businessman Paulo Marinho, politicians who were close, but had broken with the presidential family.

Six days later, on July 16, 2019, Feitosa made new illegal access to Bebianno and Marinho’s data in the tax authorities, this time also searching the data of the businessman’s wife, Adriana Marinho.

At 5:45 pm on the same day, July 16, the then head of the Revenue returned to Planalto, but this time the spreadsheets recorded that he was destined for the office of Heleno, one of the ministers closest to Bolsonaro.

As shown to SheetFeitosa accessed the confidential tax data of the head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Rio and of politicians disaffected by the Bolsonaro family without having any formal motivation for doing so, an attitude that is not permitted by law.

The Revenue opened an internal investigation in 2020 and the case is currently at the Attorney General’s Office of the National Treasury with the recommendation that Feitosa resign from public service. The final decision rests with Minister Fernando Haddad.

The data from the plateau entry and exit registration system obtained now by Sheet show that Feitosa entered the seat of government nine times with registration at the entrance, during the period in which he headed the tax authorities’ intelligence.

On three of these occasions there is a mention that the destination was Heleno’s office, on the other six no specific destination inside the palace was informed.

The first times the head of the Revenue entered through the Planalto entrance was precisely on the 10th and 16th of July 2019. On the 10th, Bolsonaro’s and Heleno’s public agendas do not record meetings with Feitosa. On the 16th, the date on which the head of the Revenue practically concluded the illegal accesses he would make to the tax authorities’ bases, Feitosa entered the Planalto at 5:45 pm.

According to the document, his destination was Heleno’s office and, 5 minutes and 8 seconds later, at 5:51 pm, he left the Planalto.

On the 16th, Heleno’s official public agenda states that he participated from 8 am to 5:34 pm in a meeting of the Government Council, chaired in part by Bolsonaro. That is, according to official records, he would have left the meeting 11 minutes before Feitosa arrived at his office.

Photos taken from the ministerial meeting led by Bolsonaro show Heleno among the participants of the meeting.

Bolsonaro’s agenda lists the ministerial meeting and a series of appointments with aides, parliamentarians and others, but there is no mention of Feitosa’s name.

According to the subsequent investigations carried out by the Revenue, Feitosa would make just one more illegal access to confidential data after the 16th, on the 18th of July, concerning Paulo Marinho.

In all, the then head of Revenue intelligence scoured and made copies of data from Bolsonaro’s enemies in four secret Revenue systems, the Income Tax, one that gathers assets and financial operations of special interest to the Treasury, one foreign trade and an integrated platform powered by 29 different databases.

About a year after this inquiry, the defense of Flávio Bolsonaro mobilized several organs of his father’s government precisely on the assertion that there was a scheme of illegal access to his tax data, which would have been the basis for the production of the Financial Intelligence Report that arrived to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Rio and triggered the case of “cracks”.

As of August 2020, lawyers for the president’s son met, among others, with Heleno’s GSI and with Abin (Brazilian Intelligence Agency), commanded by Alexandre Ramagem, to address the matter.

During that period, the Revenue also mobilized a team of five civil servants for four months to investigate Flávio’s accusation, but in the end he stated that he had not found any evidence in this regard.

The other two times that Feitosa is registered in Planalto to go to the GSI are related to September 18 and 19, 2019, a few days before his resignation from office.

On the 18th, Heleno’s public agenda registers a meeting with Bolsonaro in the morning, in addition to other commitments. On the 19th, three meetings: with Bolsonaro, then with members of the Escola Superior de Guerra and, finally, with the judge Carlos Brandão and the head of Abin, Alexandre Ramagem. There is no mention of Feitosa in those two days.

The report located only one public agenda in which Feitosa’s name appears. It is a meeting at the GSI on June 18 between him, Heleno and the then Revenue Secretary, Marcos Cintra. That day Feitosa does not appear in the entry and exit records at the Planalto entrance, and he may have entered through another location, such as the garage.

OTHER SIDE: Heleno says he does not remember meeting outside the agenda

Augusto Heleno stated that he was never aware of illegal access at the Federal Revenue to confidential data of Bolsonaro’s enemies.

He said that the meeting recorded in his agenda with Feitosa and the then Revenue Secretary, Marcos Cintra, in June 2019, was possibly a courtesy visit. “I always had a great relationship with Dr. Marcos Cintra. Other than that, the GSI is the head of the Brazilian Intelligence System”, he said.

About Feitosa’s trips to the Planalto Palace and to the GSI exactly during the period in which the head of the Revenue’s intelligence carried out investigations against the president’s opponents, Heleno said he did not remember these visits.

“I don’t remember him or what would have taken him to my office. He could have been received by any of my assistants”, he said.

A Sheet received no response from Frederick Wassef, a lawyer representing Bolsonaro. Feitosa’s defense said that he would try to contact the client this Monday morning (13), but there was no response until the publication of this report.

Via text messages, Marcos Cintra also said he was unaware of the unmotivated access made by his then subordinate and stated that the June meeting he had with Feitosa in Heleno’s office took place so that the new head of tax intelligence could be introduced to the minister.

Asked whether anything had been said at that meeting about investigating data from Bebianno, Marinho or Gussem, Cintra replied: “Nothing. At that time, the attack was being discussed [cometido no ano anterior por Adelio Bispo contra Bolsonaro] and request made to the Federal Revenue to see the origin of the payment to Adelio Bispo’s lawyer”.

Cintra also said that there was discussion about investigations into leaks of tax data dossiers of superior court ministers and their wives.

Asked about how this discussion took place, Cintra said that there was only an informal and generic conversation, because they were subjects that were being reported by the press.

“You asked if we talked about Feitosa’s research. No. The most likely thing is that we talked about these general matters. It was a presentation visit, without agenda.”