Cid’s cell phone had a theoretical arsenal for a military coup – 06/18/2023 – Power

The Federal Police report on Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid’s cell phones reveals that the military manned a theoretical arsenal to justify an intervention by the Armed Forces after last year’s election.

It also shows that he participated in conversations about a possible coup d’état and that his wife, Gabriela, was involved in mobilizing demonstrations in front of barracks.

The objective of the coup action would be to prevent the inauguration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and keep Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in the Presidency, to whom Cid was an assistant – a kind of private secretary who accompanies the authority almost the entire time.

In a note on Friday (16), Bolsonaro’s defense stated that the dialogues found on Cid’s cell phone reinforce that the former president did not participate in coup-mongering articulations and that the former advisor’s phone was the repository of the most diverse lamentations.

According to the PF, the identification of this dossier occurred by chance, after an operation in early May related to alleged fraud in Bolsonaro’s vaccination card. At the time, Cid was arrested; he and his wife had their cell phones seized.

Since then, agents have been picking apart the phones. Although the review is still ongoing, they found the content so relevant that they decided to submit a partial report.

Documents in defense of a coup d’état

What caught the investigators’ attention were photographs of a text whose final paragraph reads: “I declare a state of siege; and, as a continuous act, I decree Operation of Guarantee of Law and Order”.

According to the PF, he sent the images from one of his cell phones to the other, to make a backup. In this process, carried out on November 28, 2022, he concealed the author of the text.

With three pages, the document looks like a draft of a state of siege decree, an initiative provided for in the Constitution for situations of “serious commotion with national repercussions” and which allows the president to restrict the secrecy of communications, freedom of the press and the right to meeting, among other measures.

As an argument, the text brings a heterodox interpretation of the principle of morality to defend that allegedly unfair decisions of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) need to be remedied in some way.

The PF points out other documents with content related to this: a presentation and an article associated with the Army Command and General Staff School and a compilation of the 1988 Constituent Assembly.

There are also documents related to lawyer Ives Gandra Martins: an analysis of his ideas, a written interview and some videos (in the last two cases, theoretical expositions prior to the election or even the Bolsonaro government).

All of this material deals with the role of the military in guaranteeing law and order or guaranteeing constitutional powers. The whole suggests an effort to support the action of the Armed Forces as a moderating power in any conflict between the Judiciary and the Executive or the Legislative – an interpretation that is also heterodox.

Dialogs found on cell phones

On another front, the PF highlights explicit dialogues about a coup or demonstrations in support of the military.

In one of them, held in November and December, Colonel Jean Lawand Junior asks Cid several times to convince Bolsonaro to order the intervention of the Armed Forces. At one point, Cid says he’s in the fight.

There is also a WhatsApp group called “Dosssss!!!”, made up of senior officers on active duty who oscillate between resignation and requests for intervention to prevent Lula’s inauguration.

On the cell phone of Gabriela, wife of Mauro Cid, the PF identified conversations with Ticiana Villas Bôas, daughter of Eduardo Villas Bôas, former commander of the Army. The two talk about the logistics and the call for protests promoted by Bolsonaro supporters.

Another cell phone examined is that of Sergeant Luis Marcos dos Reis, also a former Bolsonaro assistant who was arrested in the operation over alleged vaccination card fraud.

In a dialogue with dos Reis, Cid expresses support for demonstrators camped in front of a battalion in Goiânia, which Cid himself almost took over this year.

Dos Reis also interacts with other interlocutors, to whom he sends several images of the coup attack in Brasília, making it clear that he himself participated in the 8th of January.