BRASILIA: A Brazilian senator said Thursday that a close aide of former President Jair Bolsonaro tried to persuade him to join a plot to reverse the far-right leader’s election loss last year.
Senator Marcos Duval told a news conference that he was invited to a meeting with then-President Bolsonaro on December 9 by his fellow former lawmaker Daniel Silveira. At the meeting, Silveira asked the senator to try to make compromising comments in a taped conversation with the head of the electoral court that could lead to the judge’s arrest, Duval said.
The senator told reporters that Bolsonaro “sat quietly” while Silveira hatched a plot against Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court judge who runs Brazil’s top electoral authority (TSE).
Bolsonaro launched baseless attacks on the integrity of the electronic voting system, which Morris defended in decisions that Bolsonaro blamed for his defeat.
Silveira was arrested by police on Thursday on a warrant issued by Morris, who accused him of disobeying court orders and “total disrespect and contempt” for the judiciary.
Representatives for Bolsonaro, who has been based in Orlando, Florida, since late December, arriving two days before his term ends, could not immediately be reached. His party, the Liberal Party, declined to comment.
The former president’s son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, said in a statement that there had never been a coup attempt and that his father “is a defender of law and order and has always acted within the four lines of the constitution.”
Duval’s account is the strongest testimony yet to support allegations that Bolsonaro tried to overturn the results of the October election in which leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office on January 1. .
JEE News, which first reported the alleged plot, later released audio Thursday in which Duval says he heard details of the plot directly from Bolsonaro at a Dec. 9 meeting. The magazine said it had seen messages that proved the meeting had taken place.
Bolsonaro said Brazil’s intelligence agency (ABEN) would provide technical support with surveillance equipment to record Morris, Duval told JEE News.
Earlier on Thursday, Abien said in a statement that he was “absolutely not involved in any action” referring to the alleged plan to tap the conversation with Morris.
Bolsonaro left Brazil for Florida 48 hours before Lula took office, never admitting defeat to Morris, who is being investigated at the Supreme Court for his alleged role in inciting the riots by his supporters, who 8 In January, the military stormed government buildings in an attempt to provoke a coup.
According to a court document seen by JEE News, Morris ordered Duval to provide sworn testimony to federal police within five days as part of the investigation against the former president.
Du Val, who said he was considering resigning his Senate seat, called the meeting “a strange, immoral and even criminal act,” according to JEE News.
Silveira told the former president that Duval, a Bolsonaro supporter, could be trusted and asked Bolsonaro to present to him “an idea that will save Brazil,” JEE News reported.
