The Brazilian government indicted Jair Bolsonaro this week on charges that he tried to stage a coup to overturn the election in 2022. They are damning.
Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has moved a step closer to jail after a federal police investigation laid bare what it called a murderous authoritarian plot to explode the country’s democratic system with a military coup that the far-right populist allegedly helped mastermind.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied involvement in an attempt to overturn the result of the 2022 presidential election, which he narrowly lost to his leftwing rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
But on Tuesday, an 884-page federal police report accused the former army captain of taking a lead role in planning and organizing the conspiracy and trying to persuade the most senior members of the military to join the criminal enterprise.
Several top members of the armed forces allegedly agreed, including the commander of the navy, Adm Almir Garnier Santos, and the army’s ground operations commander Gen Estevam Theophilo.
The police report paints the former defence minister, Gen Walter Braga Netto, as being one of the plot’s main architects, although he has denied a coup was ever discussed. Braga Netto, 67, who was Bolsonaro’s vice-presidential running-mate in the 2022 election, has denied involvement in any coup plot. Garnier Santos and Theophilo have yet to publicly comment on the allegations.
I think it’s plain it’s exactly the kind of thing Trump wanted to do in 2020 and couldn’t because the military wouldn’t cooperate. That’s what stoppee Bolsonaro too.
Police allege Bolsonaro ultimately backed away from the three-year plot after the heads of the army and the air force, Gen Marco Antônio Freire Gomes and Air Lieutenant Brigadier Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior, refused to offer their support.
Trump and his henchman Pete Hegseth will make sure that doesn’t happen to him if he decides to use the military for his political needs this time. They’re going to purge the top brass of anyone who isn’t a Trump loyalist. Remember this?
The Trump transition team is considering a draft executive order that establishes a “warrior board” of retired senior military personnel with the power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend removals of any deemed unfit for leadership.