CPI January 8: Deputies from Brazil and USA exchange reports – 01/06/2023 – Power

Brazilian parliamentarians and advisors to congressmen met last week with American congressman Jamie Raskin to discuss strategies and exchange experiences on investigations into the anti-democratic invasions of parliaments in both countries.

Raskin, from the Democratic Party, was one of the nine members of the January 6th Committee, as the commission that investigated the invasion of the Capitol, in Washington, in 2021 became known. attacked the country’s Parliament to prevent the confirmation of Joe Biden’s victory.

The meeting took place virtually on Tuesday (23). Participating were teams of two members of the CPI formed by deputies and senators in Brazil to investigate the attack on the three Powers on January 8 of this year, committed by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) against the newly sworn government Lula (PT ).

Advisors to senator Eliziane Gama (PSD-MA), rapporteur of the CPI, and deputy Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP), who is also part of the commission, were at the meeting. In addition to them, deputy Henrique Vieira (PSOL-RJ) participated in the meeting.

“The contributions of Congressman Jamie Raskin were extremely valuable, as the US has acted strongly to investigate and exemplarily punish coup plotters who attacked democracy in that country”, he told the Sheet the senator.

At the meeting, according to the participants, Raskin advocated that the investigation involve the collaboration of groups from different parties, be broad and unrestricted. In the United States, of the 9 members of the commission, 7 were Democrats and 2 Republicans.

The commission in Brazil was born multiparty due to the difference between the Brazilian political system and the American one, which has only two parties represented in Congress. In the case of the US, however, there was an important difference. The two Republican members, the same party as Trump, did not defend the former president and signed the final report that called for the indictment of the former president. As a result, they ended up losing space in the caption and voter support. One of them, Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, failed to be re-elected. The other, Adam Kinzinger, did not run again.

Raskin also suggested that the commission in Brazil investigate an alleged performance by international ultra-right groups, which act in a network in different countries to destabilize democratic governments, and cited the presence of federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro (PL-SP), son of the former president. , in the United States at the time of the attacks —he was at the White House two days before the Capitol invasion.

The American deputy also suggested to the group a thorough investigation of the financiers of anti-democratic acts in Brazil. “The suggestions given by the parliamentarian to deepen the investigations against the financiers of the coup acts in Brazil are already on our radar. We are sure that in an investigation of this scale, the exchange of experiences and the sharing of information are of significant importance”, said Eliziane.

Another tip was to work on communication, to make the public aware of the seriousness of the facts. “Understanding the timing of social networks and having a good ability to reverberate what we are doing in an environment where the extreme right navigates well [a internet]is as important as having a good debate in Parliament”, said deputy Henrique Vieira to the report.

“The investigation and the narrative that goes to society are two things that need to walk together,” he said.

According to him, there was a component of religious fundamentalism in anti-democratic acts in the US, in Raskin’s account, and it will be interesting to observe the participation of churches in fomenting the attacks in Brazil as well.

The meeting was organized by the Washington Brazil Office group, and members of organizations such as the Vladimir Herzog Institute, Arns Commission, Abong (Brazilian Association of NGOs), Article 19 and Pact for Democracy also took part.

The meeting took place two days before the installation of the CPI in Brazil, last Thursday (25), with Senator Eliziane as the rapporteur and federal deputy Arthur Maia (União Brasil-BA) as president. The CPI’s investigation focus should be Bolsonaristas, responsible for the coup attacks on the main buildings of the three Powers. This includes the vandals themselves, the organizers of the acts, the financiers of the camps and caravans and intellectual authors, such as former President Bolsonaro.

The commission that investigated January 6 in the US lasted a year and a half, from July 2021 to December 2022, heard more than a thousand witnesses and asked for the indictment of Donald Trump for four crimes related to his refusal to accept the result of the presidential election 2020: obstruction of official procedure; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make a false statement; and inciting, assisting, or aiding insurrection.