CPMI tries to reach Bolsonaro by breaking Zambelli’s secrecy

The Joint Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPMI) on January 8 approved requests to break fiscal secrecy (financial transactions), telephone and telematics (internet communications) of deputy Carla Zambelli (PL-SP). The action is an attempt to reach new information about the connection between the parliamentarian and former president Jair Bolsonaro. Government parliamentarians should also try to accuse her of involvement with the hacker Walter Delgatti Neto in the invasion of the CNJ systems and in attempts to point out fraud in the electoral system.

The governing wing of the CPMI had already been trying to approve the requests for breaking the secrecy of the deputy for a few days, especially after the hacker was in the commission and claimed that Zambelli would have been responsible for his rapprochement with Bolsonaro. Delgatti Neto also claimed that he had been hired by her for BRL 40,000 to act in attempts to prove fraud in the electronic voting machines used by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE). The deputy denied the payment.

Regarded by many as politically isolated by the right-wing group most closely linked to Jair Bolsonaro, the deputy received support from deputy Marco Feliciano (PL-SP). According to the parliamentarian, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva tries to create intrigue among Bolsonarists by saying that the deputy was abandoned. “This parliament should at least have respect for peers,” said Feliciano, defending Zambelli.

According to the congressman, there was not even an invitation for her to have the chance to defend herself at the CPMI, but “there was a direct phone breakdown, the breakdown of her bank account. Imagine if this wave picks up, if this precedent is created here”, said Marco Feliciano. For him, “the CPMI has lost its focus, and we are simply here in a moment of showwhere scenes take place”.

In the assessment of political scientist Waldir Pucci, a professor at the University of Brasília, Carla Zambelli is the weakest link among all the others who were very close to former president Jair Bolsonaro. Her political isolation is causing her to receive even more pressure from the ruling base.

“I see Carla Zambelli increasingly isolated, either by the Bolsonarist group that partly blames her for the defeat of the former president. [nas Eleições 2022]having seen the fact that occurred the day before the election, when she pursued a citizen with a gun in her hand,” he said.

Still according to Pucci, leftist parties “have a lot of interest in the impeachment of the deputy, and due to Zambelli’s proximity to the former president, they are trying to reach Bolsonaro through her”.

Carla Zambelli herself has already stated: “the impression I have is that they are trying to involve the president through me, because I am very close to the president, and that will not happen because there is no proof”.

Recently, the episode cited by the analyst in which Zambelli walked behind a journalist in São Paulo, gun in hand, may have complicated the life of the parliamentarian even more.

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) accepted by 9 votes to 2 the complaint by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) and made Zambelli defendant for illegal possession of a weapon and illegal embarrassment with the use of a firearm.

The prosecution asks that the deputy be sentenced to pay a fine of R$ 100,000 for collective moral damages, in addition to losing the weapon used in the pursuit and the definitive cancellation of her license to carry a weapon.

Conviction in criminal proceedings can lead to loss of mandate

The founder of the Institute of Political and Electoral Law, Izabelle Paes Omena de Oliveira Lima, states that the loss of mandate of parliamentarians can only occur when the conduct practiced by them can be inserted in the hypotheses provided for by the Federal Constitution, such as breach of decorum, suspension of political rights and final criminal conviction.

“When a parliamentarian is the target of denunciations of criminal practices, the consequences of this investigation may result in the loss of mandate due to possible framing in the hypothesis of breach of parliamentary decorum, which will be investigated in a separate process, before the legislative house and with the guarantee due process of law”, explains the lawyer.

Zambelli may still present a defense to the STF. The process will enter the evidence collection phase and only after that will the trial take place.

In the assessment of analyst Antônio Lucena, professor of Political Science at the Catholic University of Pernambuco, Zambelli’s situation is ‘very difficult’, both because of the case of the persecution of a citizen with a gun in his hand, and because of the hiring of hacker Delgatti Neto. The payment made to the hacker via transfer via PIX, according to him, “was very amateurish on the part of the deputy”.

“It seems that she tried to bring the hacker closer to Bolsonaro, and if that proves to be true, the situation will be very difficult”. Lucena does not rule out the possibility that the deputy may lose her mandate, if a possible impeachment process is analyzed by the Plenary of the Chamber of Deputies.

Zambelli should once again be the target of the Ethics Council of the Chamber of Deputies

After escaping a lawsuit for having cursed Deputy Duarte Júnior (PSB-MA), during a tumultuous session of the Constitution and Justice Commission that was attended by the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino — the case was shelved at the beginning of August –, the deputy may be taken back to the Ethics Council.

PSB and PSOL presented representation against Carla Zambelli for hiring the hacker Delgatti Neto to invade the system of the National Council of Justice (CNJ), and insert a false arrest warrant against Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court.

The parties relied on the hacker’s statements to ask for the deputy’s impeachment, this time for evidence of inappropriate use of public resources to finance “illegal and subversive” activities.

According to the representation, “the conduct perpetrated by the represented occurred in the context of promoting crimes against the Democratic State of Law”. In addition, the governing parties allege that Zambelli would have taken advantage of her condition as a federal deputy and used the structure of the Chamber of Deputies to support illicit activities and “sow doubts about the legitimacy of parliamentary representation, and therefore, of democracy itself”.

Zambelli was the target of the Federal Police Operation that arrested hacker Delgatti Neto for the 3rd time

Denunciations against congresswoman Carla Zambelli began to become more frequent at the beginning of the month when the Federal Police ordered the execution of search and seizure warrants at her residence, in Brasília, and at her office in the Chamber of Deputies. The investigations resulted in the arrest of the hacker Delgatti Neto, in Araraquara, in the interior of São Paulo, within the scope of Operation 3FA.

Delgatti Neto became known for disclosing alleged conversations between the former judge of Operation Lava Jato, now Senator Sergio Moro (União Brasil-PR) and former prosecutor and impeached deputy Deltan Dallagnol.

The suspect forwarded the content of the alleged messages between the Lava Jato coordinators to the journalist at The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald, which later served for the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba to annul Moro’s decisions against the former governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral, for example. The files were also used for Lula’s defense to argue Moro’s suspicion to judge him.

Task force members never acknowledged the authenticity of the messages. At the time, the task force stated in a note that the members of the Federal Public Ministry suffered a “criminal attack”.

Lava Jato was the biggest investigation against corruption in Brazil. Between 2014 and 2021, the operation took two former presidents (Lula and Temer) to jail, in addition to businessmen and politicians, with the return of more than R$ 22 billion to public coffers.

What does the deputy’s defense say

Lawyer Daniel Bialski, who defends the deputy, pointed out that the breach of tax secrecy had already been determined by the STF and that “it was enough to request a copy”. “She [Carla Zambelli] she is absolutely calm about it because she has nothing to hide”, she said.

Bialski said that, during the course of the Supreme Court proceedings in which the deputy pulled a gun, the defense will “demonstrate that, in fact, she was and is a victim because she was having lunch with her son when she was confronted, cursed and threatened by 5 men , one of whom actually spat on her. [A deputada] acted as a way to stop him and because of the circumstances. Acted in the regular exercise of a right”.

The lawyer also pointed out that Carla Zambelli “had possession and registration of the weapon precisely because she was threatened with death, kidnapping her son, etc. And, for all that, the defense hopes to elude [eliminar] the indictment and show that [a parlamentar] did not practice the conduct described in the complaint”.

As for the possible involvement with the hacker, the defense said, in an interview with GloboNewsthat Zambelli was careless, and that there is no payment made by the deputy to Delgatti Neto.