Education Car Wash: corruption probe, or witch-hunt?

As has become customary, messages recently published on President Jair Bolsonaro’s official Twitter account have raised a series of questions about the head of state’s motives and intentions. And no, this time we’re not talking about the golden shower incident. On Monday, Mr. Bolsonaro posted a series of tweets concerning his plan for launching an “Operation Car Wash” into Brazil’s education system.

Borrowing the name of the sweeping corruption investigation into contracts signed with state-owned oil and gas giant Petrobras, the original pitch—floated in February—was to propose something similar in education, investigating contracts and covenants signed with the Ministry of Education.

In its essence, it is a worthwhile endeavor, as several programs under the purview of the Ministry of Education have been subject to suspicions of fraud, and investigating therein is commendable. However, President Bolsonaro’s tweets at the beginning of this week have suggested the operation is for another purpose entirely.

In the first two posts in a thread on the matter, Mr. Bolsonaro repeated his initial justification for...