Revenue confirms investigation into pressure to stifle Bolsonaro’s disaffected probes – 03/01/2023 – Power

The Federal Revenue released a note this Wednesday (1) stating that on January 3, that is, the third day of the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) administration, there were “reports of facts and events that may, in theory, constitute an offense to be duly investigated”.

The note was released in response to a report by Sheet published this Wednesday, reporting that the body’s inspector, João José Tafner, claims to have suffered pressure last year from the former tax command to file a disciplinary process open against the server who accessed, without legal justification, confidential tax data of opponents of the Bolsonaro clan.

“Regarding the article in Folha de São Paulo entitled ‘Corregedor says he was pressured to acquit the Revenue’s intelligence chief under Bolsonaro’, the Federal Revenue clarifies that, in a meeting held on 01/03/2023, there was a report of facts and events which may, in theory, constitute an offense to be duly investigated”, says the note.

The recipe adds that “the report was recorded in minutes signed by the special secretary [da Receita] Robinson Barreirinhas along with three civil servants from the Internal Revenue Service and the Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Finance, who participated in the meeting”.

According to unofficial internal reports, Barreirinhas saw a possible act of prevarication, since Tafner would not have denounced the case or taken measures at the time of the alleged pressures.

Such as Sheet revealed this Monday (27), the head of intelligence at the Federal Revenue at the beginning of the Jair Bolsonaro administration, Ricardo Feitosa, accessed and copied in July 2019 confidential tax data from opponents of the then president.

They are the coordinator of investigations into the alleged “cracks” scheme —the then Attorney General of Rio Eduardo Gussem— and two politicians who had broken with the presidential family, businessman Paulo Marinho and former minister Gustavo Bebianno.

There was no formal investigation by the IRS against these people that would justify these inquiries. The case resulted in an internal investigation at the Revenue, which recommended the suspension of Feitosa.

Tafner delivered the conclusion of the investigation with the recommendation of a greater punishment, the dismissal of the civil servant, and, at that meeting, accused the then Federal Revenue Secretary Julio Cesar Vieira Gomes and the then Undersecretary General, José de Assis Ferraz Neto, of pressuring him last year to file the case and not punish Feitosa.

Julio Cesar denies any kind of pressure and says that during his tenure, all of the internal affairs’ suggestions were accepted without hesitation. The final decision on whether or not to dismiss Feitosa rests with the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad.

As indicated in this Wednesday’s Revenue note, Tafner’s report on the alleged pressure to close the case occurred on the 3rd.

As reported by people directly familiar with the case, after indicating that he would be investigated for prevarication, Tafner also formally accused Barreirinhas of forcing him to resign from his mandate, which ends in January 2025.

In this Wednesday’s note, the Revenue says that “there was no pressure from the current command of the Federal Revenue to resign from the mandate of the corregidor”. He adds that there is still “no judgment regarding the facts and events reported” and that the minutes were sent to the Internal Affairs Department of the Ministry of Finance and are, for the time being, “confidential because they contain facts that may become part of a correctional procedure”.

Tafner participated in Bolsonarist campaign acts in 2018 and even posed for photos alongside then-deputy candidate Eduardo Bolsonaro wearing a Brazilian national team shirt and a sticker from another PSL candidate.

He arrived at the position after a long public and behind-the-scenes campaign by the Bolsonaro clan to place someone aligned in the chair, as the family claimed to be persecuted through illegal data access and leaks of confidential information, especially those of Flávio Bolsonaro (PL -RJ).