Bolsonaro Claimed He Would Send Troops to Supreme Court, Says ‘Piaui’ Magazine

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – According to Piauí magazine, during a meeting in the Planalto Palace on May 22nd with part of his cabinet, President Jair Bolsonaro said he would send troops to “intervene” in the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

The magazine provides details of the meeting, said to have been attended by General Walter Braga Netto, Chief of Staff of the Presidency, General Luiz Eduardo Ramos, Head of the Government Secretariat, and General Augusto Heleno, of the Office of Institutional Security (GSI).

In fact, the President’s agenda, officially released by the Planalto, records a meeting between the President and the three Military Ministers. According to the report, at the very start of the meeting, the Chief Executive made his intention clear. “I will intervene!” he said.

The statements are said to have startled General Heleno, who was the last to come into the room. However, Ramos allegedly welcomed the idea, to “restore the President’s authority”. Bolsonaro was angered by Supreme Court Justice Celso de Mello‘s ruling that had referred three police investigation petitions from political parties to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (PGR).

Retreat

Among the petitions was one calling for the search and seizure of Bolsonaro’s cell phone. The President reportedly backed down, due to Heleno’s intervention, after he said that “it is not yet the time” for an authoritarian onslaught. Another fact said to have weighed heavily is the absence of a compelling legal argument to support this authoritarian move.

On the afternoon of that same day, a Friday, Heleno released a public note, which inflamed the political scene. “The Office of Institutional Security of the Presidency of the Republic alerts the established authorities that such an approach [by the STF Justice] is a clear attempt to compromise the harmony between the powers and could have unpredictable consequences to national stability,” wrote Heleno.

Dictatorship

Days after the President was deterred from the thought of attacking democracy, Justice Celso de Mello forwarded to his close contacts a message that alerted to the escalation of authoritarianism and the risk of Brazil having to face a dictatorship again.

“With all due proportions preserved, the ‘serpent’s egg’, alike what occurred in the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), seems to be about to hatch in Brazil,” Celso de Mello wrote. In the following passage, the oldest and longest-serving Justice stated that resisting the collapse of democracy is necessary.

“It is necessary to resist the destruction of the democratic order, to avoid what happened in the Weimar Republic when Hitler, after being elected by popular vote and later appointed by President Paul von Hindenburg, on 30/01/1933, as Chancellor (Prime Minister) of Germany (Reichskanzler), did not hesitate to disrupt and nullify the progressive, democratic and innovative Weimar Constitution, imposing on the country a totalitarian power regime made possible by the March 1933 edition of the (Nazi) law granting full powers (or enabling law) that enabled him to legislate without the intervention of the German Parliament,” wrote Celso de Mello.

At the time, Supreme Court sources reported that the text passed on by Mello had not been sent to all the other Justices and that it had targeted people close to and trusted by Justice Mello.

According to sources, who were again contacted on Wednesday, August 5th, the intention would be to alert them to the risks to democracy. But the recommendation would be to avoid alarm and try to create a reaction by the institutions without generating social chaos – a scenario favorable to those in favor of a constitutional rupture.

Source: Correio Braziliense