Bolsonaro Verdict

With all due respect to those who believe in Bolsonaro, facts speak louder than words. After a long-winded court case he was found guilty without a shadow of doubt in my opinion apart from those supporters who turn a blind eye to his warmongering techniques.

Talk about follow the crowd suckers, well many believe his political view is correct, even though he is foulmouthed, demeaning, and incompetent. He criticized those who got in his way or wouldn’t support his cause. He would put ordinary people down, as if he had all the answers to society. He couldn’t discuss without making fun of others. His leadership encouraged others who weren’t happy with Brazilian politics to believe he had the solution.

He was definitely an agitator with his attacking of others like Alexandre Moraes, the Supreme Court Judge who participated in the guilty verdict and passed the sentence. These attacks towards Moraes had been going on since his early presidential leadership. He gathered the masses and humiliated the Supreme Court Judge while stirring trouble.

Perhaps his view had merit, however his blatant disregard to law and order whilst conducting uncivilized gatherings and then his helmetless rallies all around the country resembled a Mussolini type thug. All the while his massive supporter base provided him with egocentric proudness to escalate disrespect to the democratic system.

His unconstitutional approach by demanding what he wanted and using his follower base to bully his way forward was in complete breach to the evolution of democracy since it emerged in the mid-80s. If you can't persuade legally then take it like a man and resort to other methods within the law!   

I wrote several blogs to show my disgust for the way ex-president Jair Bolsonaro acted as the leader of Brazil during his term in power.

~Time Magazine wrote~

“On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Brazil convicted Jair Bolsonaro, the former president, for attempting a coup to hold onto power after losing elections in October 2022, and sentenced him to prison for 27 years and three months. The trial and the conviction of Bolsonaro and several members of his inner circle—mostly former military officers like him—is the first time a Brazilian president was convicted of a coup attempt.

The trial was accompanied by an aggressive campaign by President Donald Trump against Brazil to help Bolsonaro, a far-right populist and former Army captain, escape justice. The trial and prosecution of Bolsonaro became a test for the independence of Brazilian judiciary, which did not buckle under domestic or international political pressure.

More than 40 years have passed since Brazil's military dictatorship ended in 1985. The military regime passed an Amnesty Law in 1979, and Brazil has never prosecuted any of the military officials responsible for crimes committed during the regime—kidnapping, torture, and murders. For a country still reckoning with the brutality of its dark past, the trial of several high-ranking military officers in a civilian court is a singular achievement.

The trial of Bolsonaro and many others, including his top aides, came about after a two-year investigation by Brazil’s federal police after Bolsonaro lost the Oct. 2022 election and his supporters violently stormed government buildings in Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2023. In February, Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet, charged Bolsonaro and other accused, with leading a criminal organization, plotting a coup d’état, and violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. The alleged plot, according to the prosecutors, included a plan to poison Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won the election and succeeded Bolsonaro as the President of Brazil, and Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge.

When charges against Bolsonaro were filed in February, Trump had already returned to the White House after successfully dodging criminal prosecution for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. election. During his time in office and throughout his re-election campaign in 2022, Bolsonaro had diligently followed the Trump playbook. He poisoned trust in Brazil’s democratic institutions, and the very electoral system that had elected him.

The violent storming of government buildings in Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2023 by the supporters of Bolsonaro echoed the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots in Washington following Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, his repeated false claims of voting fraud, and his refusal to concede losing the elections.

Bolsonaro hoped for a similar dismissal of legal proceedings against him and dreamed of winning back the presidency when Brazil held elections in 2026. “If the United States did that with President Trump, we can do that with President Bolsonaro in the election of 2026,” said Eduardo Bolsonaro, the former president’s son, as he stood with Steve Bannon in Washington in January.  

On March 26, the Supreme Court unanimously accepted charges against Bolsonaro and ordered him to stand trial. Over the next five months, as the court advanced with the legal proceedings and heard the closing submissions of the defense lawyers and the attorney general, political tensions in the country escalated.

As the legal proceedings moved along, Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro and Paulo Figueiredo, a grandson of the country’s last military dictator and a far-right political comentatator, lobbied President Trump’s allies to convince him to intervene in favor of Bolsonaro. Two Republican representatives wrote a letter to Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging them to use the Magnitsky Law to sanction Justice Moraes, who had become a target for MAGA and the global far right after he clashed with X, Rumble, and Trump Media Group over misinformation.

With Bolsonaro facing trial, Eduardo stepped back from his duties as a Congressman in Brazil and spent months in the U.S. to “seek justice” for his father. Eduardo and Figueiredo intensified their lobbying efforts. The two men became frequent guests in Steve Bannon’s War Room and appeared on Matt Gaetz’s One America News, Tucker Carlson’s YouTube channel and podcast. They met several Republican representatives and, eventually, members of the Trump cabinet.

Would an American President intervene to help a foreign politician escape the legal process in his country? It seems unthinkable. Shockingly, on July 9., President Trump announced plans to impose 50% tariffs on imports from Brazil—despite the U.S. having a trade surplus with the Latin American country. And Trump called on Brazil’s government to end the “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro. Economist Paul Krugman mocked the tariffs as “Trump’s Dictator Protection Program.”

Even Bolsonaro’s closest allies publicly denounced Eduardo for conspiring against his own country. 

On August 1, the Trump tariffs on Brazil came into effect, starting a trade war with Latin America’s biggest economy. President Lula was defiant. The Trump Administration also revoked the U.S. visas of seven Brazilian Supreme Court justices and the attorney general of the country, and applied the Magnitsky Act against Justice Moraes. On Aug. 13, Fernando Haddad, the finance minister of Brazil, was in Washington to discuss U.S. tariffs on Brazil with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who cancelled the meeting. Two days later, Eduardo posted a photo with Bessent, claiming they had met the same day Bessent bailed on Haddad.

On Sept. 2, the Supreme Court building in Brasilia was abuzz: A panel of five judges gathered to deliberate the case and arrive at a verdict in the Bolsonaro trial. More than 3,000 Brazilians registered to attend the sessions in the courtroom. A large screen was set up outside the Supreme Court building to enable crowds to watch the trial, which was broadcast live on the court’s official public television, radio, and YouTube channels. Some opponents of Bolsonaro posted online photos of themselves sitting on sofas and watching the trial with bowls of popcorn. Millions of Brazilians prepared to watch the trial of their former president with a fervor reserved for the final episodes of a superhit telenovela.

The prosecution had a crucial state witness: Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, who had been Bolsonaro’s personal secretary and turned in exchange for a lighter sentence. He had testified during the trial that Bolsonaro had “received and read” a draft decree for declaring a state of emergency, calling for the arrest of the head of the Senate and three Supreme Court judges. Versions of the document were found on his smartphone, at the home of Anderson Torres, who served as minister of Justice and Public Security under Bolsonaro, and at the headquarters of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party. Lt. Col. Cid alleged that Bolsonaro had “edited” the document to ensure that only Justice Moraes would be arrested. Another document found with Cid contained a list of attacks with grenade launchers and assault rifles planned in Brasília and São Paulo.

And there was an alleged assassination plot! Federal police had discovered a document detailing a plan to assassinate President Lula and Justice Moraes on a computer belonging to General Mario Fernandes, a top aide of Bolsonaro. General Fernandes had printed the assassination plan document in the Presidential Palace just before meeting with Bolsonaro. Fernandes, who was arrested and testified to the court through a video link, claimed that the document was merely a “digitized thought,” a “risk analysis” not shown to anyone else. Attorney General Gonet argued that Bolsonaro knew of those assassination plans.

The coup attempt did not fail because the plotters lacked intention or planning; they failed because the commanders of the Brazilian army and air force refused to participate. The commanders testified to the Federal Police and confirmed that Bolsonaro personally discussed the proposal with them. In his detailed closing argument before a panel of five Supreme Court judges, Gonet referred to the accused as a “criminal organization” that had documented almost all of its actions through recordings, handwritten notes, digital files, spreadsheets, and exchanges of electronic messages.

Brazil held its breath as the judges deliberated on the verdict. For the first time in Brazilian history, a former president accused of plotting a coup against democratic rule and numerous high-ranking military officers close to him stood trial. Bolsonaro was made to wear an ankle tag and placed under house arrest for attempting to obstruct justice; he decided not to attend the trial.

In a show of support, some of Bolsonaro’s voters held vigils at the gated and highly-secured condominium where the former president lives in Brasília. Security was reinforced on the streets of the capital with extra contingents of the military and judicial police, sniffer dogs, and intelligence officers. ~Time Magazine~

Bolsonaro was found guilty and given 27 years and 3-month prison sentence. His lawyers will be appealing the decision in the upcoming weeks.

Take care!

Prof. Carl Boniface

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjpHbr9YrwQ

Vocabulary builder:

Turn a blind eye (idiom) = pretend not to notice. "Please, don't turn a blind eye to what is happening."

Blatant (adj) = obvious, unconcealed, unashamed, flagrant, deliberate

Witch Hunt (n) = a search for and subsequent persecution of a supposed witch. Informal a campaign directed against a person or group holding unorthodox or unpopular views.