Insider

Bolsonaro asked for fake news to be “spread as much as possible”

Jair Bolsonaro, looking at his phone, alongside former Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto. Photo: Zanone Fraissat/Folhapress

Former President Jair Bolsonaro sent fake news to a businessman investigated for encouraging putschist acts, and asked for the text to be “passed on as much as possible,” according to a WhatsApp message found by Brazil’s Federal Police.

The June 2022 message (months before the elections) said that then-head of the Superior Electoral Court Luís Roberto Barroso was traveling abroad and meeting with party leaders to work against reintroducing paper ballots — a strategy of Mr. Bolsonaro’s to discredit the fully electronic system used in Brazil since 1996.

The former president falsely claimed that this would be a way to “interfere” in the elections and, in another lie, said that a polling institute was inflating numbers to benefit Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who was later elected president.

In the conversation, businessman Meyer Nigro responds that he “has already sent [the message] to several groups,” asks how Mr. Bolsonaro is doing, and sends him “hugs from Venice.” He is the owner of Tecnisa, one of Brazil’s largest real estate companies.

This Wednesday, the former president confirmed that he sent the message. “I sent it to [Mr.] Meyer, what’s the problem? [Justice] Barroso has spoken abroad, I have always been a supporter of printed votes,” he told a reporter from Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. Mr. Bolsonaro checked himself into a hospital in São Paulo for routine tests this Wednesday.

Mr. Bolsonaro is summoned to testify to the feds on the issue on August 31. It will be his fifth deposition, having already given explanations about a jewelry scandal, the January 8 riots, fake vaccination records, and the alleged attempted coup denounced by Senator Marcos do Val.

This week, Justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized 60-day extensions to investigations into Mr. Nigro and Havan franchise owner Luciano Hang, two of the biggest pro-Bolsonaro businessmen in the country. They participated in a WhatsApp group with messages relating to a coup attempt in the event of a Lula victory.

Amanda Audi

Amanda Audi is a journalist specializing in politics and human rights. She is the former executive director of Congresso em Foco and worked as a reporter for The Intercept Brasil, Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo, Gazeta do Povo, Poder360, among others. In 2019, she won the Comunique-se Award for best-written media reporter and won the Mulher Imprensa award for web journalism in 2020