SAO PAULO – Brazil’s former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was fully aware of and actively participated in a coup plot to remain in office after his defeat in the 2022 election, according to a Federal Police report unsealed Tuesday.
Federal Police last Thursday formally accused Bolsonaro and 36 other people of attempting a coup. They sent their 884-page report to the Supreme Court, which lifted the seal. The unsealed document provides a first glimpse of several testimonies that describe the former president as one of the key leaders of the plot, and not a mere observer.
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“The evidence collected throughout the investigation shows unequivocally that then-President Jair Messias Bolsonaro planned, acted and was directly and effectively aware of the actions of the criminal organization aiming to launch a coup d’etat and eliminate the democratic rule of law, which did not take place due to reasons unrelated to his desire,” the document said.
At another point, it says: “Bolsonaro had full awareness and active participation.”
Bolsonaro, who had repeatedly alleged without evidence that the country's electronic voting system was prone to fraud, called a meeting in December 2022, during which he presented a draft decree to the commanders of the three divisions of the armed forces, according to the police report, signed by four investigators.
The decree would have launched an investigation into suspicions of fraud and crimes related to the October 2022 vote, and suspended the powers of the nation's electoral court.
The navy’s commander stood ready to comply, but those from the army and air force objected to any plan that prevented Lula’s inauguration, the report said. Those refusals are why the plan did not go ahead, according to witnesses who spoke to investigators.
Bolsonaro never signed the decree to set the final stage of the alleged plan into action.
Federal Police say the former president and his allies at first expected to launch the coup d'etat on Dec. 15, 2022. The document also said that top military personnel who stood in the way became targets of online attacks by a pro-Bolsonaro digital militia group.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or awareness of any plot to keep him in power or oust his leftist rival and successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
“No one is going to do a coup with a reserve general and half a dozen other officers. What is being said is absurd. For my part, there has never been any discussion of a coup,” Bolsonaro told journalists in Brazil’s capital Brasilia on Monday.
“If someone came to discuss a coup with me, I’d say, that’s fine, but the day after, how does the world view us?” he added. “The word ‘coup’ has never been in my dictionary.”
The top court has passed the report to Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet. He will decide whether to formally charge Bolsonaro and put him on trial, or toss the investigation. The former president was formally accused of three crimes: violent elimination of the rule of law, staging a coup d'etat and forming a criminal organization.
Rodrigo Rios, a law professor at the PUC university in the city of Curitiba, said Bolsonaro could face at least 11 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
“A woman involved in the Jan. 8 attack on the Supreme Court received a 17-year prison sentence,” Rios told The Associated Press, noting that the former president is more likely to receive 15 years or more if convicted. “Bolsonaro’s future looks dark.”
In the Jan. 8, 2022 riot, his followers ransacked the Supreme Court and presidential palace in Brasilia, seeking to prompt intervention by the army that would oust Lula from power.
João Pedro Pádua, a law professor at the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro, said Bolsonaro’s defense could argue that actions of planning for a coup d’etat, as many described in the document, shouldn’t be prosecuted as if the group had acted.
“There’s a distinction between preparatory actions and execution actions. Planning is typically a preparatory action,” Pádua said. “Of course there are some execution actions here, too. Pressure on key military agents is one. But there will be a debate about that.”
Pádua added that Bolsonaro faces the biggest risk of conviction on the count of forming a criminal organization, as the document shows evidence that he held several meetings with key allies to discuss the plot.
Ahead of the 2022 election, Bolsonaro repeatedly alleged that the election system, which does not use paper ballots, could be tampered with. The top electoral court later ruled that he had abused his power to cast unfounded doubt on the voting system, and ruled him ineligible for office until 2030.
Still, he has maintained that he will stand as a candidate in the 2026 race.
Since Bolsonaro left office, he has been targeted by several investigations, all of which he has chalked up to political persecution. Federal Police have accused him of smuggling diamond jewelry into Brazil without properly declaring it and directing a subordinate to falsify his and others’ COVID-19 vaccination statuses.
Authorities are also investigating whether he incited the Jan. 8, 2022 riot.
Bolsonaro had left for the United States days before Lula’s inauguration on Jan. 1, 2023 and stayed there three months, keeping a low profile. The police report unsealed Tuesday alleges he was seeking to avoid possible imprisonment related to the coup plot, and awaiting the uprising that took place a week later.
Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, one of the former president's sons, said Tuesday evening that “the only path for some normalcy and some balance between the powers is amnesty” for the far-right leader, his allies and his supporters.
“It has to be wide-ranging, general and unrestricted amnesty. I am very convinced of that. It has to include Justice Alexandre de Moraes, too,” Flavio Bolsonaro said during a session at the Senate. He and his allies claim de Moraes has overstepped in the investigations of the former president and want him impeached.
De Moraes denies any wrongdoing in the probe and has =insisted he will not leave the investigation even though he was one of the targets of the plot.
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Hughes reported from Rio de Janeiro.