“There was no leader in 8/1”, says Lula’s Defense Minister

Lula’s Defense Minister, José Múcio Monteiro (PRD), stated that during the events of January 8th “there was no leader with whom to negotiate”. “There were ladies, children, boys, girls… As if it were a big picnic, a haul towards Praça dos Três Poderes”, he added. The statement, given during an interview with the newspaper O Globo, published this Friday (5), contradicts the investigations opened at the Supreme Court, which seek to find the supposed leaders of the movement.

Next, Múcio says that “it was a movement of vandals, financed by irresponsible businessmen”. Múcio still considers that “the Armed Forces did not want a coup”. “You can say: ‘In the previous government there were people who wanted the coup’, but there was no leader who said: ‘We want it, I’m the boss, let’s go’. There is no revolution without a boss,” he added.

The federal deputy Lindbergh Farias (PT-RJ) criticized Múcio’s speech in X, the old Twitter (read the full text below). For the parliamentarian, the minister gave a “prior amnesty” to former president Jair Bolsonaro. “What do you mean Minister? One of the most important lines of the investigation conducted by the STF is about the intellectual authorship of this attempted coup”, states Farias. Soon after, the deputy says that “this speech is almost the defense of a prior amnesty for the coup leadership, for the military involved in the plot and for Jair Bolsonaro himself”.

This is not the first time that the Minister of Defense has made statements along these lines. In an interview with the UOL portal in August, Múcio avoided calling the invaders “scammers”. “That day it was very easy if the Armed Forces wanted a coup, the people went. It was just about supporting those troublemakers who didn’t represent society,” he told UOL.