Bolsonaro starts week under the shadow of coup and fake news – 06/19/2023 – Politics

Jair Bolsonaro (PL) enters the decisive week for his political future pressured by the unfolding of the criminal cases in which he and his closest assistants are targets and also worn out by yet another fake news about the vaccine —which led him to a rare retraction at the end of week.

The former president arrives at the trial at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) capable of making him ineligible days after the disclosure of the contents of the cell phone of his former assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, with a theoretical arsenal on how to give a blow.

On Saturday, the president’s political group still tried a positive agenda, with Bolsonaro at an event in Jundiaí (SP). The agenda, however, further worsened the former president’s image because of yet another fake news about him about the vaccine.

At the same event, Bolsonaro himself said that he is experiencing a problem and that the “indicatives” for the judgment “are not good”.

The trial that could make Bolsonaro ineligible is scheduled to start this Thursday (22) and could occupy all TSE sessions in the coming weeks.

The most advanced action in court concerns the meeting at the Alvorada Palace, in July last year, in which the then President of the Republic presented lies about electronic voting machines to ambassadors.

If he is defeated and declared ineligible by the TSE, Bolsonaro will not be able to run for eight years, and this period starts counting from the 2022 election – when he was defeated by Lula (PT).

Even with the seriousness and the possibility of ineligibility, Bolsonaro and his allies have had to share the focus in recent days with other concerns, those in the criminal sphere.

As in the TSE, the center of criminal investigations against Bolsonaro and his allies is the escalation of attacks on the electoral system for concrete coup attacks from the election campaign.

By sending the contents of Mauro Cid’s cell phone to Minister Alexandre de Moraes (STF), Federal Police delegate Fabio Shor exposed his line of reasoning.

Shor is the successor of Delegate Denisse Ribeiro in the investigations of fake news and digital militias – the investigator left the case because of maternity leave. It is within the delegate’s investigations that all cases against Bolsonaro are included, with the exception of January 8.

According to the delegate, his investigations had identified until then the “modus operandi in the virtual world, on social networks” of those investigated and the documents and messages found with Cid “revealed the process of materialization in the real world” of the investigated criminal association.

This supposed association would include Bolsonaro, Cid, Anderson Torres and at least some of his military ministers, such as Luiz Eduardo Ramos and Augusto Heleno.

Everyone, in some way, participated in events in the virtual world in which Bolsonaro attacked the electoral system or spread false news or misinformation about the electronic ballot box —from the live on July 29, 2021, through the leak of the TSE hacker attack investigation, to the meeting with the ambassadors in the sights of the electoral trial.

Reading the report by Shor and his analysts shows that the PF understands that events since the electoral defeat, including January 8, are part of the materialization of what was promoted on social networks by Bolsonaro.

“The digital militia reverberated and amplified the idea that the presidential elections were rigged through multichannels, encouraging its followers to resist in front of barracks and installations of the Armed Forces, in order to create the right environment for a federal intervention”, says the delegate .

In addition to helping Bolsonaro start the week of his trial at the TSE under pressure, Shor’s report indicates the proximity of the final stretch of investigations and, as shown by the Sheetthe signal that Moraes will use maximum charge against the former president also in the criminal sphere.

In the election, Moraes’ articulation ensured that the composition of the TSE was more aligned with his theses.

The content found on the cell phone of Bolsonaro’s former assistant came to light after Moraes withdrew the secrecy of the Federal Police report with the analysis of the material.

In some cases, Army officers and reservists discussed the use of the Armed Forces against the result of last year’s presidential elections. Army colonel Jean Lawand Junior, for example, sent an audio in which he asks the representative to “give the order”.

“Cid, for God’s sake, man. He [Bolsonaro] give the order that the people are with him, man. If the guys don’t comply, that’s their problem. The Brazilian Army ends if these guys don’t comply with the order of the Supreme Commander. How am I going to accept an order from a General, who did not receive, who did not accept the Commander’s order. For God’s sake, Citizen. For God’s sake, do something, man. Convince him to do it,” Lawand said in one of the audios, according to the PF transcript.

Bolsonaro’s defense minimized the dissemination of the material and said that the content reinforces that the former president did not participate in coup articulations.

“The new dialogues revealed by Veja magazine prove, once again, that President Bolsonaro never participated in any conversation about an alleged coup d’état”, says the note signed by lawyers Paulo Amador da Cunha Bueno, Daniel Tesser and Fábio Wajngarten.

“We also recorded that the adjutant, due to the function performed, received all the demands —applications for scheduling, messages, etc— that should reach the President of the Republic. His cell phone, therefore, on several occasions became a simple box of correspondence that registered the most diverse lamentations”, concludes the note.

Amidst the pressure, Bolsonaro used his social media for a rare apology for spreading yet another fake news about vaccines. He participated in the act of affiliation of the mayor of Jundiaí, Luiz Fernando Machado, to his party, the PL.

The former representative stated, at one point, that Pfizer’s RNA platform vaccines would be composed of graphene dioxide and added that the substance would accumulate in the testes and ovaries. The false information had been denied by Anvisa. The next day, he recanted the statement and apologized.

“Regarding a conversation yesterday about the existence of graphene oxide in the mRNA technology vaccine, there was a mistake on my part. As is public knowledge, I am enthusiastic about the potential use of graphene oxygen, so I inadvertently linked the substance with the vaccine, a fact denied in August 2021”, wrote the former president.

“Once again I regret what I said and apologize,” he added in his post.