Brazilian police say Bolsonaro planned a coup to stay in office

Brazilian federal police officially accused far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others in late November of plotting a coup to keep him in office. The agency, in an 884-page report, described a multi-stage scheme that was supported by evidence and testimony.

The plan involved systematically sowing popular distrust of the electoral system, drafting a decree to give the conspiracy a legal basis, pressuring high-ranking military officials to agree to the plan, and inciting an uprising in the capital.

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Attorney General Paulo Gonet will now decide whether to formally indict the defendants, close the investigation or request further witness testimony to understand each person’s involvement in different parts of the alleged conspiracy before deciding who will stand trial on which charges. Bolsonaro and his key allies have denied any wrongdoing or involvement and accuse authorities of political persecution.

Former President Jair Bolsonaro arrives for a press briefing at the airport in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, Nov. 25, 2024, after being formally charged by federal police with attempting a coup. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Here’s a breakdown of the plan’s key elements, as laid out in the report, and how they are said to be connected.

Sowing doubts about the Brazilian electoral system

Police allege that efforts to spread fake news through Brazil’s electronic voting system began in 2019, Bolsonaro’s first year in office, but became more strategic and intensive as his re-election in 2022 approached.

Police say so-called “digital militias” consisting of thousands of social media accounts linked to pro-Bolsonaro propaganda, as well as other prominent right-wing influencers and politicians, spread propaganda claiming the electoral system could be rigged . Bolsonaro also openly expressed his admiration for Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985), which he said saved the country from communism.

The narrative of impending illegitimate electoral defeat helped Bolsonaro rally tens of thousands of supporters for multiple street demonstrations, prompting many to set up camp outside military barracks and headquarters to put pressure on leaders.

Three months before the election, Bolsonaro invited dozens of diplomats to a nationally televised meeting at the presidential palace where he outlined supposed weaknesses in the electoral system without providing evidence.

After Bolsonaro’s defeat by leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party challenged the results in the country’s top electoral court, arguing that voting machines manufactured in certain years could have enabled fraud. The election court immediately dismissed the lawsuits.

“They spread false studies through the Liberal Party about the vulnerabilities of electronic voting machines to provide a factual basis for a presidential decree” that would set the coup in motion, the report said.

A draft decree to set the coup in motion

In January 2023, Brazilian police found a draft decree in the home of Bolsonaro’s former justice minister Anderson Torres. It was one of many versions created either at the far-right leader’s behest or with his knowledge, police said. The former president presented the unsigned document to the commanders of the three divisions of the armed forces on December 7 and asked for their support.

Investigators say the draft decree shows Bolsonaro and his allies were trying to set up a committee to investigate suspected fraud and crimes in the October 2022 vote so they could later suspend the powers of the country’s top electoral court and potentially call a new election.

The navy commander was ready to comply with the decree, but army and air force leaders opposed any plan that would prevent Lula’s inauguration, the report said. According to witnesses who spoke to investigators, these refusals were the reason the plan was not implemented.

Many legal experts say evidence that the former president presented the draft to military leaders and supported different versions of the document is very damaging.

“(The goal) was to unduly intervene in elections,” said Luiz Henrique Machado, a law professor at IDP University in the capital Brasilia. “In Brazil, the electoral prosecutor and the supreme electoral court have the final say on electoral legislation.”

In an interview with the website UOL published on Thursday, Bolsonaro said he discussed with military leaders measures including the imposition of a state of emergency and other extraordinary measures that would have suspended the rule of law for the common good. He said such measures are provided for in the Constitution, so considering these options would not be unreasonable.

“What is being said is absurd. For me there was never any discussion about a coup,” Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia on Monday.

Plot to assassinate the president-elect

On November 19, Brazilian federal police arrested four army special operations forces and a federal police officer who were accused of plotting to assassinate Lula, Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes in 2022. The arrested men were all mentioned in a police report that was later unsealed.

The assassination plan was aimed at leaving Bolsonaro’s ticket as the only one still valid in the 2022 runoff, police said. As for de Moraes, he led a five-year investigation into fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices that led to some far-right allies and supporters being banned from social media and even jailed. In early 2023, he led the country’s top electoral court when it declared Bolsonaro ineligible until 2030 for abuse of power related to a meeting he called with foreign ambassadors to spread lies about the electoral system.

Gen. Walter Braga Netto, Bolsonaro’s 2022 candidate and former defense minister, gave the green light to the assassination plan during a meeting with the conspirators at his home, investigators added. Federal police portray the retired general as one of the leaders of the conspiracy, who was also involved in pressuring military leaders to join the coup.

Braga Netto said in a statement on Tuesday that it had never planned a coup. He added that several of the documents seized from one of his associates, including “writings, drafts and media reports,” were “preparatory material used to respond to media inquiries and prepare for testimony at congressional hearings.”

The police report contains no evidence that an assassination attempt was made on Lula or Alckmin. However, investigators found messages and documents indicating that the conspirators were monitoring and tracking de Moraes at this time.

Police said they found evidence that Brigadier General was retired. General Mário Fernandes, one of the arrested officers who served as interim secretary-general of the presidency, also visited protest camps outside military installations, including at the army headquarters in Brasilia. Investigators said they had evidence that he gave instructions to the protesters and supported them financially.

January 8th Uprising

Federal police linked Bolsonaro and some of his top ministers to the Jan. 8, 2023, riots in which supporters of the former president, many of whom had camped outside army headquarters for months, ransacked the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential palace in Brasilia .

The protesters had asked the armed forces to keep the leftist leader out of office and their riot – which took place after Lula was sworn in – was an attempt to force military intervention and overthrow the new president, police said.

The uprising appears in the report as one of several “other actions to pressure the army commander to join the coup.” Police also say that Brig. Gen. Fernandes sent a message to Gen. Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, then army commander, in November 2022, discussing the need for a “triggering event” for a coup.

Defendants, including Bolsonaro, have argued that the unrest was an isolated event, and many legal experts have noted that evidence in the report linking the unrest to a broader conspiracy is tenuous.

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“It is clear that the suspected coup plotters had contacts with people camping in front of military barracks, people who were there on January 8th. But how much of that contact was translated into planning, coordination, and incentive for these people to take over public buildings that day? “This is to be discussed, it will be discussed in the trial and in the collection of further evidence,” said João Pedro Pádua, a professor of criminal justice procedures at the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro.

Bolsonaro traveled to the United States a few days before Lula’s inauguration on January 1, 2023 and stayed there for three months, keeping a low profile. The police report said he avoided possible imprisonment in connection with the coup attempt and waited for the consequences of the uprising.