RIO DE JANEIRO — Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been named a target in a federal investigation into whether his government plotted a military takeover of the country, police officials told The Washington Post Thursday, and has been given 24 hours to surrender his passport.
The revelation came as federal police launched a large search-and-seizure operation early Thursday morning that targeted some of Bolsonaro’s closest advisers and aides, including former justice minister Anderson Torres and Bolsonaro’s running mate, Walter Braga Netto.
The announcement sent political shock waves through Latin America’s largest country, still reckoning with an attack by thousands of Bolsonaro supporters on its most important federal buildings early last year after a historically divisive presidential election, and it brought closer the prospect that Brazil could again witness the prosecution of a former president.
Bolsonaro’s vaccine status falsified before he entered U.S., police say
Since Bolsonaro was bested by current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and left office, he and his allies have fended off probes and allegations of corruption that have ranged from lying to U.S. authorities about Bolsonaro’s vaccination status, improper handling of state jewelry and using government surveillance to spy on opponents.
But the most significant has long been an investigation, overseen by the Brazilian supreme court, into whether the Bolsonaro government planned to subvert Brazilian democracy and maintain its grip on power despite the outcome of the 2022 presidential election.
On Thursday, federal officials revealed fresh findings of the investigation. Two police officials, who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the probe, said the plot to steal power was far more advanced than previously known. It involved logistical and tactical planning and entailed the involvement of the most senior officials in the Brazilian government.
Brazilian court bars Bolsonaro from running for office
For months before the election, Bolsonaro and his top allies made unsubstantiated allegations in public and on social media that the Brazilian electoral system had been stained by fraud and could no longer be trusted. Police now say those remarks were part of a plot to provide political cover for a military takeover if the election didn’t go their way. Police say Bolsonaro officials also undertook logistical and tactical planning, in coordination with military officials, to execute the takeover.
The court order that authorized the operation, obtained by The Post, highlighted a proposed executive decree that had been circulating among senior Bolsonaro officials. The decree, which had earlier been found in the possession of the former justice minister, authorized a military takeover and the arrest of two supreme court justices and the president of the Brazilian senate.
Bolsonaro, the court order said, was more than aware of the decree. He was granted access to it and made edits.
Police on Thursday ordered Bolsonaro, who has been staying at his beach house near the coastal city of Angra dos Reis, to refrain from any contact with aides under investigation.
Bolsonaro denied the allegations, saying he was the victim of political prosecution.
“I left office more than a year ago, and I’m still suffering implacable prosecution,” he is quoted as telling Folha de S.Paulo. “Forget me,” he added. “You now have another person governing the country.”
Thursday’s operation and revelations are sure to inflame political polarization in Brazil, which remains bitterly divided over Bolsonaro’s presidency and what role he played in the January 2022 attack on Brasília.
Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio, a Brazilian senator, called the operation a “fishing expedition” and an attempt to “destroy the right.”
Lula, in a radio interview while visiting the state of Minas Gerais on Thursday, said he didn’t doubt Bolsonaro’s involvement in the alleged plan to militarily take over the country.
“It couldn’t have happened without him,” Lula said. “His behavior was so strange. Before the elections, he spent the entire time lying about the election, about the vote, casting suspicion on a process that elected him in 2018. It was a tactic.”