Valdemar Costa Neto denies coup on 1/8 and blames PT – 05/16/2023 – Power

The president of the PL, Valdemar Costa Neto, said this Tuesday (16) that the coup attacks on January 8 were not an attempted coup d’état.

“We do a coup with a machine gun, a war tank. It was never a coup”, he said in an interview with GloboNews.

“Crazy is everywhere,” he said. Valdemar pondered, however, that all those involved “should be arrested for the attack against the country”.

“It was a wrong decision by the government, which already belonged to the PT”, he said.

According to him, tempers flared when, the day before, the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, published an ordinance that allowed the use of the National Force on the Esplanade.

At one point, the president of the PL even called January 8 a “coup”. When questioned, he said he used that term because it was used by journalists on the show.

In the interview, Valdemar downplayed the accusations against former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and stated that making him ineligible is “impossible” and “a crime”.

“I think it’s impossible for Bolsonaro to be ineligible for having said something in the past, it’s impossible,” he said. “It’s a crime, they won’t have the courage to do that [julgá-lo inelegível] and if they do, they will give prestige [ao ex-presidente]”, evaluated.

A lawsuit accuses Bolsonaro of abuse of power during a meeting with ambassadors at the Planalto Palace, where he lied about the security of electronic voting machines. The process at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) is under secrecy.

Valdemar also said that Michelle Bolsonaro, a former first lady, does not want a mandate as president, senator or mayor. He said that she “made it clear to us that she doesn’t want to have a mandate, she wants to work in PL Mulher to bring more women into politics”.

The president of the PL said he wanted her to want a mandate, “because she bombs the internet, newspapers, she has personality. I don’t know where she learned it, she went alone”.

“She got better on her own [em pronunciamentos] and she wants to know about the PL Mulher to put women in politics, we need that, not a quota”, he pointed out.

This Tuesday, the day Bolsonaro testifies about possible fraud on his vaccine card, Valdemar said that, if any illegality occurred, it was without the former president’s knowledge.

“Everyone knew that Bolsonaro was not vaccinated. [Mauro] Cid did something, it was without Bolsonaro’s knowledge.”

Army lieutenant colonel Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former assistant, was arrested earlier this month in the operation that targets fraud in vaccination cards against Covid-19. Advisors to the former president were also arrested.

Valdemar highlighted that the then president “did not need to have a vaccine” to travel to the United States at the end of his term and that he made the trip with the official plane.

The President of the PL recalled scenes like Bolsonaro eating pizza on the street because he was unable to enter restaurants due to the lack of vaccine.

For the third time in 40 days, Bolsonaro returned to the headquarters of the Federal Police, in Brasília, to testify. He arrived at 1:30 pm and entered through the garage. At the beginning of the month, he was questioned by the PF about the coup acts and, in April, about Saudi jewelry.