Cid’s defense suggests an error in the investigation into the meeting – 02/10/2024 – Power

Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid’s lawyer, Cezar Roberto Bitencourt, assessed as excellent the video released on Friday (9) of Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) ministerial meeting in which the former president and assistants clearly discussed coup scenarios.

Bitencourt told Sheet that the content of the recording served to show an “arbitrary, arrogant and determined” stance on the part of the former president. “Nobody talks, and he was trying to set it up, you could see it,” he said. “I loved listening to that audience, the hubbub, the arrogance,” he added.

Despite this, he said that the disclosure “does not change anything” the plea bargain signed by Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp.

The lawyer also stated that he has “no idea” whether the soldier will be called again to testify due to the revelations in the video, but that Cid is available. “We are swimming with our strokes, we are happy. Cid is feeling good and calm,” he said.

Asked why he had not spoken sooner about the video, found on his computer by the Federal Police, the defense stated that it made no difference.

“There’s a lot of evidence, of elements. He didn’t remember. It doesn’t make the slightest difference,” he said.

“I don’t know who recorded the video, I imagine it’s an official recording. I’m not worried about who recorded it, who stopped recording it. That doesn’t matter at all, but the content of the video.”

Furthermore, the lawyer said that speculation that investigators of the case would not have liked Cid omitting the meeting in his statement is “a thing” in the media.

“When I am a defendant, I am investigated, and the police authority calls me there to be heard, I go with my lawyer — the best one I have — and I will answer the questions they asked me. Period, it’s over.”

He also said that if anyone was wrong, it was the investigators who didn’t ask about the video.

“There are years of facts, of events, of things. How am I going to remember? Those who have to ask are the authorities. If you want to know, they ask a list of questions, hundreds of them. For hours and hours, there, giving statements. Will I remember? Will I have to remember the details of something? Those who have to remember are those who investigate. It’s called an investigation. They investigate. If anyone made a mistake, failed, it was them.”

The lawyer also said he had no concerns about the dialogue found between Cid and Army Special Forces Major Rafael Martins de Oliveira regarding the payment of R$100,000 to fund the protesters’ trip to Brasília. “If you check the context of what he said, we have no concerns,” he said.

The revealed video shows a meeting held in 2022, three months before the first round, in which Bolsonaro appears propagating false news about electronic voting machines and asking his subordinates to disseminate these allegations.

Military ministers present, in turn, spoke of the need to “turn the tables” before the elections and that the electoral transparency commission of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) was for “English to see”.

Excerpts from the video were transcribed in the decision of Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), which authorized the Tempus Veritatis operation, launched by the Federal Police on Thursday (8) and which investigates a criminal organization that allegedly acted in the coup attempt of State and abolition of the democratic rule of law.

The operation also showed that Cid, with the help of other people, monitored the schedule and movement of Moraes, who is also president of the TSE.

The PF’s action resulted in the arrest of former advisors to Bolsonaro and the president of the PL, Valdemar Costa Neto — the latter for having been caught in illegal possession of a firearm.

In addition to Bolsonaro himself, he targeted high-ranking military personnel and former ministers with search and seizure warrants, including generals Augusto Heleno (former minister of the Institutional Security Cabinet), Walter Braga Netto (former Civil House and candidate for vice ) and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira (former Defense).