Bolsonaro to testify on putschist WhatsApp group investigation

Former President Jair Bolsonaro is due to testify before the Federal Police on Wednesday. He is part of an investigation around a WhatsApp group set up by wealthy businessmen, with messages before the 2022 election in which they defended a coup d’état to prevent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office if he won the race.

The messages were revealed in August 2022 by news website Metrópoles, just two months prior to the first round. At the time, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered search and seizure warrants against the business leaders. Part of the material gathered was dismissed for a lack of evidence of criminal activity. 

Now, the case focuses on Meyer Nigri, owner of Tecnisa, one of Brazil’s largest real estate companies, and Havan franchise owner Luciano Hang.

In June 2022, the former president sent disinformation content to Mr. Nigri and asked for the text to be “passed on as much as possible.” The message, sent months before the elections, said Luís Roberto Barroso, Brazil’s then-chief electoral justice, 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 said that a polling institute was inflating numbers to benefit Lula — who was later elected president. Mr. Nigri responded that he “has already sent [the message] to several groups.”

In August, Mr. Bolsonaro confirmed that he sent the message, a few moments before checking himself into a hospital in São Paulo for routine tests. His testimony was postponed since then.

This will be his fifth deposition to the feds. He already has testified about a jewelry scandal, the January 8 riots, a scheme to produce fake vaccination records, and an alleged attempted coup denounced by Senator Marcos do Val.

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