The Federal Comptroller General’s Office (CGU) has confirmed that former President Jair Bolsonaro used fake Covid vaccination cards (which may have allowed him and his top aides to evade U.S. travel restrictions in December 2022).
Last May, Federal Police agents raided Mr. Bolsonaro’s Brasília home and arrested six people, including three aides close to the former president, as part of an investigation into who falsified Brazil’s official vaccination records.
Mr. Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp, Army Lieutenant-Colonel Mauro Cid, was taken into police custody in yet another fake vaccine card scandal — and was released only six months later.
But while the CGU was able to confirm that Mr. Bolsonaro had not taken a single-jab Janssen vaccine in July 2021, as indicated on his vaccination card, it was not able to identify the perpetrators of the fraud.
The list of suspects was as extensive as the list of employees at the health unit where Mr. Bolsonaro would have been vaccinated, as all staff shared the same login and password when entering data into the vaccine system.
The Federal Police discovered the fraud, in which former First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro and the daughter she shares with the former president used fake vaccination cards.
Mr. Bolsonaro was arguably Brazil’s highest-profile Covid denier, repeatedly spreading misinformation about Covid vaccines while in office. He said they were “experimental,” even after they were approved by health agencies such as Anvisa, Brazil’s federal health regulator.
The far-right leader also made false claims that the vaccines were linked to the development of Aids. For the latter comment, he and one aide were investigated by the Federal Police and found to have committed a crime for inciting people not to vaccinate or wear masks based on false information.
A Senate hearings committee investigated the Jair Bolsonaro administration’s Covid response. Its final report recommended that he be investigated for nine crimes, including crimes against humanity for allowing the pandemic crisis to become a catastrophe. So far, the coronavirus has killed 709,000 people in Brazil, second only to the U.S.
Last year, Mr. Bolsonaro claimed to have never taken a Covid shot, yet denied any wrongdoing regarding his vaccination card.
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