Bolsonaro must suffer criminal defeats after setback at the TSE – 07/01/2023 – Power

The conviction of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) signals that the former president may also be punished in the criminal sphere in the coming months.

By 5 votes to 2, the Electoral Justice made Bolsonaro ineligible until 2030. Without a mandate, he will still answer in the STF (Federal Supreme Court) for his coup attempts inflated through the dissemination of misinformation.

The former representative is the target of several investigative fronts, the main ones related to the 8th of January and others gathered in the inquiry of the digital militias.

The votes of some ministers in the TSE, including that of the rapporteur, Benedito Gonçalves, and that of Alexandre de Moraes, rapporteur for criminal investigations, indicate that Bolsonaro is seen as a member of the digital militia.

Justices Benedito Gonçalves, Floriano de Azevedo Marques Neto, André Ramos Tavares, Cármen Lúcia and Alexandre de Moraes voted for the condemnation. Raul Araújo and Kassio Nunes Marques, on the other hand, demonstrated to free him from the accusation.

The rapporteur Benedito Gonçalves showed in his vote the understanding that there is a direct relationship between the speech against Bolsonaro’s ballot boxes before the election with the attacks in the post-election period —represented by the coup draft revealed by Sheet.

By defending the inclusion of the coup draft found in the house of former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres in the TSE process, the minister exposed the view that the coup proposed there would be the materialization of the speech of the former president and his allies throughout the entire government and, with more force since 2021, against the electoral system.

“It is evident that the draft materialized in a formally technical text a way out in case there were signs of electoral fraud in 2022. This in a context in which the hypothesis of fraud was treated as equivalent to the defeat of the candidate for presidential reelection”, said the minister .

Moraes, in turn, cited the digital militias during his statement at the trial and made references to them at least twice.

The minister classified as digital militiamen those who have produced and disseminated disinformation around the world and indicated the need to punish those involved.

“Disinformation produced and disseminated by real digital militiamen around the world. If this authoritarian bias and extremism is what we want for our democracy, let’s reaffirm faith in our democracy and the rule of law,” he said.

“We will not allow digital militias to try again to destabilize elections and democratic institutions.”

The digital militias inquiry brings together all of Bolsonaro’s coup attempts against institutions and their role in spreading fake news and misinformation.

In his vote to accept the accusations against prisoners on January 8, Moraes had already indicated the relationship between the attacks and the ongoing investigations that investigate Bolsonaro’s offensive against the ballot box.

By indicating the list of cases, Moraes points to Bolsonaro as one of the masterminds of the attacks, in addition to indicating January 8 as one of the events linked to the criminal organization investigated in the militia inquiry.

The minister stated to the CPI on January 8 that he should complete the investigations into the depredation of the headquarters of the three Powers by the end of this month.

The investigation also focuses on the lives of July and August 2021, when Bolsonaro attacked the polls and then leaked an inquiry under secrecy to support the lies said about the electoral system.

In the report on content found with Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former assistant, the delegate himself pointed out his understanding of the coup attacks.

According to him, at first, the investigation identified the activities of the investigated criminal association “in the virtual world, on social networks, where its members promoted/promote attacks to pave the way for achieving the objectives outlined (ideological, party-political gains and financial)”.

After January 8th, the delegate states that the materials found with Cid “revealed the process of materialization in the real world of the objectives of the association now being investigated, overflowing its activities beyond the virtual sphere.”

“The digital militia reverberated and amplified the idea that the presidential elections were rigged through multiple channels”, said the delegate.

As shown to Sheet in May 2022, the militia inquiry was already seen by the PF as a shield against Bolsonaro’s coup attempts, among them, a possible action such as the invasion of the Capitol, in the United States, on January 6, 2021.

The interpretation assumed that Bolsonaro, if he lost the election, would use the dissemination of disinformation to encourage his supporters to do something along the lines of what happened after the defeat of Donald Trump.

With the escalation of coup plotters after the defeat in the election, the PF’s projection came true and has been visible in demonstrations by Moraes and members of the Judiciary.

The reading is that the continuation of the dissemination of disinformation against the electoral system by Bolsonaro and his allies created the scenario for the materialization of the attacks after the electoral period.

First, the blockades on the highways, passing through the attempted invasion of the PF building in Brasília, the bomb installed in a truck near the airport of the federal capital, reaching the invasion and depredation of the buildings of the three Powers.

The relationship between the Armed Forces and this entire process is also being investigated.

The testimonies taken by the PF also in the militias’ inquiry show that at least two generals from Bolsonaro’s closest circle used their positions to seek information against the polls.

Luiz Eduardo Ramos, former Minister of the General Secretariat but with passage through the Civil House and Secretary of Government, and Augusto Heleno, the latter through Abin (Brazilian Intelligence Agency), worked with Bolsonaro in search of information to attack the electoral system since 2019.

One of the greatest specialists in ballot boxes for the PF, expert Ivo Peixinho, who was taken by Anderson Torres to a meeting at the Palácio do Planalto during the search for information on possible fraud, said in a statement that Abin also asked for data on the subject since 2019.