Opposition lawmakers at the congressional hearing committee created to investigate the January 8 riots in Brasília presented on Tuesday afternoon a separate report from the official one, drafted by Senator Eliziane Gama. The document, which amounts to something very close to a piece of fiction, argues that the rioters were merely “vandals” rather than agents of an attempted coup.
The report repeats talking points dear to pro-Bolsonaro influencers, such as the idea that electoral justices allegedly “interfered” in debates in Congress about a failed 2021 bill to bring back printed vote receipts. In fact, however, pro-Bolsonaro lawmakers at the time were the ones to request Justice Luís Roberto Barroso, Brazil’s then-chief electoral justice, to participate in a House hearing on the issue of printed ballots.
The text is also sympathetic to the rioters, arguing that “the interference of the Judicial Branch … political persecution, legal insecurity, and growing interference in the balance of the electoral process” are factors that “led good people to the streets after the result of the elections.”
The report also compares the January 8 riots with the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany, which is widely believed to have been contrived by the then-newly formed Nazi government to turn public opinion against its opponents. The text argues that the Lula administration was negligent with the putschist camps because this would allow the government to similarly turn opinion against the rioters and to “criminalize” the right-wing movement — notwithstanding the fact that the camps were full of very public supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro and were set up during his administration.
The text argues that the January 8 rioters could not have performed a coup because they were not armed, a similar excuse to apologists of the January 6, 2021, insurrection in the U.S.
However, it is clear that rioters hoped that the chaos and violence created by their actions would motivate an emergency decree and eventually place the military in power, and a file found in the email inbox of a Navy official contained a draft authorization for a military operation in Brasília which would have placed the military in charge of security in the capital hours after the riots started.
Both reports are yet to be submitted to a vote, which is scheduled for Wednesday morning.
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