Múcio says that the Armed Forces had nothing to do with the hypothesis of rupture

Defense Minister José Múcio Monteiro declared that the testimonies of the former Army commander, Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, and the former Air Force commander, Carlos de Almeida Baptista Junior given to the Federal Police prove that the Armed Forces had nothing to do with with the hypothesis of decreeing GLO (Guarantee of Law and Order), State of Defense or State of Siege to annul the result of the 2022 elections. The minister’s statement was given in an interview with the newspaper The globe this Saturday (16).

“My thesis that the Forces had nothing to do with this is increasingly proven. There were some people from the Armed Forces who were interested in this,” said the minister. Statements from former commanders to the PF were made public on Friday (15). Freire Gomes and Baptista Junior said they participated in meetings with Jair Bolsonaro in 2022, when the then president would have considered the possibility of intervention in the Superior Electoral Court.

In a statement to the Federal Police, Freire Gomes, former Army commander in the previous government, said that he made it clear in meetings with Bolsonaro and the then Minister of Defense, Paulo Sérgio Oliveira, that he “would not accept any act of institutional rupture”. He also claimed to have said “that there would be nothing more to do regarding the results of the elections and that any action, in accordance with the proposals, could result in criminal liability”, according to the investigation.

Former Air Force commander, Carlos de Almeida Baptista Junior, adopted a similar position, stating that he did not agree with any hypothesis of intervention.