Lula on 1/8 CPI: ‘Do whatever time you want’ – 04/22/2023 – Power

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT) said this Saturday (21) in Portugal that Congress can create the mixed CPI of January 8 whenever it wants, without interference from the federal government.

“CPI is up to the National Congress. Decide when you want to decide. Do what time you want. The President of the Republic does not vote in the National Congress. They decide.”

Alongside the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Lula showed discomfort with the question about internal problems in Brazil and said that he will make a decision about the future of the GSI (Institutional Security Office) when he returns to the country.

“When I come back, I’m going to make the decision that I think is most important for Brazil.”

Lula also said that Brazil and the rest of the world have their democracies and institutions threatened by political violence and hate speech around fake news.

Lula also cited the extreme right in Brazil, Portugal and the United States and the analysis of the Fake News Bill in Congress, which should be analyzed next week in the plenary of the Chamber of Deputies.

Last Wednesday (19), the chief minister of the GSI, General Gonçalves Dias, resigned after the release of images that put the body’s performance in check during the coup attack on January 8.

His departure from the government occurred shortly after a meeting with the president, who accepted his resignation. This is the first fall of a minister in the current management, three months and 19 days after the beginning of the mandate.

The crisis that led to the departure of the head of the GSI was triggered by the disclosure, by CNN Brasil, of images of the internal security circuit during the invasion of the headquarters of the Presidency of the Republic, showing a collaborative action of agents with coup leaders and the presence of Gonçalves Days on site.

The general’s fate was sealed amid the refusal to release images of the invasion of Planalto. A week after the January 8 attacks, the government released edited videos, in particular with excerpts that showed that the militants were allies of Bolsonaro. However, he refused a request from the Sheetvia the Access to Information Act, to release the entirety of the recordings.

The fall of the commander of the GSI must make inevitable the creation of a CPI in Congress on the coup acts, which was already being demanded by the opposition under resistance from the Lula administration, which is now expected to change its strategy.

The friendly relationship between General Gonçalves Dias, called GDias by the government team, and Lula goes back a long way. He was the military man who headed the PT’s security during his first two terms (2003-2010), acting as a sort of shadow on agendas in Brazil and abroad.

Lula decided to nominate the former security interventionist in the Federal District, Ricardo Cappelli, to lead the GSI on an interim basis.

According to the images of the invasion of Planalto, the coup leaders received water from the military and greeted GSI agents during the attacks. In the videos, General Gonçalves Dias himself walks around the third floor of the palace, in the anteroom of the President of the Republic’s office, while the acts took place on the floor below.