PF summons Bolsonaro to testify this Thursday in investigation into coup plot – 02/19/2024 – Power

The Federal Police summoned former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to give a statement next Thursday (22).

Bolsonaro is the target of a PF investigation that is investigating a coup plot to keep him in power, even with the election of President Lula (PT).

Investigators launched operation Tempus Veritatis on February 8 to investigate the case.

On that occasion, agents arrested former advisors to the former president and carried out search and seizure warrants against former ministers. Bolsonaro was forced to hand over his passport.

The operation is one of the main setbacks for Bolsonaro in the judicial siege he has faced since leaving the Presidency in December 2022.

Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), wrote in a decision authorizing the operation that the crimes of attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law and attempted coup d’état have been “proven.”

Moraes says that Bolsonaro had access and requested changes to a draft of the coup that would have been presented to him by former advisor Filipe Martins, arrested in the operation on the 8th. “The information collected revealed that Jair Bolsonaro received a draft of a decree presented by Filipe martins [então seu assessor] and Amauri Feres Saad to execute a coup d’état, detailing alleged interference by the Judiciary in the Executive Branch.”

The information that supported the operation was collected in investigations within the scope of the digital militias inquiry, which runs at the STF, and in Mauro Cid’s accusation.

The messages analyzed by the PF point out, according to Moraes, that in November 2022 Bolsonaro abandoned the idea of ​​accepting defeat at the polls to “analyze the possibility of a ‘game changer’, as advocated by some military personnel, businesspeople and members of his government” .

During the search and seizure at the PL headquarters, the police found, in Bolsonaro’s office, an unsigned document justifying the declaration of a state of siege in the country.

“After all, in view of all the above, and to ensure the necessary restoration of the Democratic Rule of Law in Brazil, playing unconditionally within the four lines, based on express provisions of the 1988 Federal Constitution, I declare a state of siege (sic ) and, as a continuous act, I decree the operation of guaranteeing law and order”, says the text.

The document is similar to one found on Cid’s cell phone in 2023.

In a note, Bolsonaro’s defense states that the text found was originally on Cid’s device seized last year, and that the former president’s lawyers had access to the files because they were elements of the investigation.

Bolsonaro, according to the defense, was unaware of the content of the minutes found on Cid’s device and asked the lawyers to forward them to his device.

The operation documents also show that Cid and other people monitored Moraes’ schedule and movement. According to the police, the objective was for the minister to be arrested as soon as the coup d’état took place.

The former president has already been convicted by the TSE for attacks and lies about the electoral system and is the target of different other investigations at the STF (Supreme Federal Court). Right now, he is ineligible until at least 2030.

Throughout his term, the president’s main confrontational strategy was to question the security of electronic voting machines, a system used since 1996 and considered efficient and reliable by authorities and experts in the country.

He never presented evidence or evidence to question the polls, but repeated the coup speech, seen as an attempt to hide the government’s problems, the high disapproval and the polls that placed him behind today’s president Lula.