A Brazilian magazine on Thursday released audio of a senator claiming that then-Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro in October last year sought help in a plot to annul elections and keep himself in power.
In the recording, Brazilian Senator Marcos do Val tells a reporter for the magazine Veja that the idea was discussed when he met with Bolsonaro and Brazilian lawmaker Daniel Silveira on Dec. 9 at the presidential residence, three weeks before Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was set to take office.
Do Val, who was an ally during Bolsonaro’s four-year term, said that the leader gave him the “mission” of recording Brazilian Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who also heads Brazil’s electoral authority, in an attempt to have the judge say that he overstepped his powers under the constitution.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I annul the election, Lula isn’t sworn in, I stay in the presidency and arrest Alexandre de Moraes because of his comments,” Do Val quoted Bolsonaro as saying.
Veja released the audio in response to denials the senator issued following the magazine’s report on Thursday morning about the purported plot, which had not cited him as its source.
Do Val told reporters after the magazine published its story that the plot had been Silveira’s idea and that the former president had not said a word during the meeting.
Later on Thursday, De Moraes ordered the Brazilian Federal Police to take Do Val’s sworn testimony within five days. Bolsonaro, who has been keeping a low profile in Florida since Dec. 30, did not comment on the matter on any of his social media channels. He recently applied for a six-month tourist visa to stay in the US.
The alleged meeting adds to the list of woes for Bolsonaro, who is already under investigation for his possible role in his supporters’ uprising in the Brazilian capital on Jan. 8.
Bolsonaro cast doubt on the nation’s electronic voting system for months in the lead-up to the election and he refused to concede defeat. His supporters have accused De Moraes of rigging the election in Lula’s favor, and of overstepping his authority by blocking social media accounts and ordering allegedly arbitrary arrests and searches.
Suspicions of a coup plot increased after police searching the home of Bolsonaro’s former justice minister found a draft decree that would have seized control of the electoral authority and potentially overturned the election.
It is unknown if Bolsonaro or his subordinates took any steps to implement the measure.
Do Val told Veja magazine and other journalists late on Thursday that he informed De Moraes of what was discussed at the meeting with Bolsonaro and Silveira, and that he declined to participate in the alleged plot.
Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the former president’s son, said he was aware of the meeting, which he described as an attempt by Silveira to persuade the other two men to do something “absolutely unacceptable, absurd and illegal.”
However, discussing such an idea does not constitute a crime, he added.
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