The U.S. alt-right worked hard to get Bolsonaro re-elected. Here’s how

On October 30, voting closed at 5 pm in most Brazilian electoral sites. It took around three hours for the Superior Electoral Court to announce the results: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist former two-term president, had won the election by less than two percentage points, defeating incumbent far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

Brazil’s fully electronic voting system is considered “a model for the nations of the hemisphere and the world,” according to the U.S. State Department. But not for the U.S. alt-right.

After the October 2 first-round vote, when it became clear that Lula had won a 6 million vote lead and would face Mr. Bolsonaro in the runoff, Steve Bannon, a former Donald Trump strategist and friend of the sitting Brazilian president — recently sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress  — and Matthew Tyrmand, a board member of  Project Veritas — a conservative organization that uses hidden cameras to expose journalists — raised suspicions about the results on Mr. Bannon’s War Room podcast. 

“There is fraud there, there was definitely machine fraud,” Mr. Tyrmand said. He based his argument on the fact that Mr. Bolsonaro began the count in the lead, before being overtaken as votes in Lula’s Northeast stronghold were tabulated. 

On the show, Mr. Bannon added that it would be “mathematically impossible” for Jair Bolsonaro to lose, having elected eight senators from his party. “There’s a lot at stake and that’s why we’re covering this so closely,” he concluded. Mr. Tyrmand also pointed to the strong performance of Mr. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party in the Senate as evidence that the sitting president had been robbed. 

This is a lie. Observers from the Organization of American States (OAS), the Institute for Democracy and Electoral System (IDEA), and the Carter Center noted that the first-round elections were “calm,” “transparent,” and “tranquil.”

The Supreme Electoral Court is solely responsible for recording the results, which are inviolable. Brazil’s electronic voting system has never recorded a single instance of fraud since its introduction in 1996. However, similar disinformation campaigns were spreading like fire on conservative WhatsApp and Telegram groups, amid disappointment over the election results. For the first time, fake news had migrated from Brazil to the U.S. “alternative” right-wing media, as opposed to the other way around.

Another guest on the War Room podcast was Darren Beattie, a former speechwriter in Donald Trump’s White House. He underlined the importance of the Brazilian elections and said Lula represented “the most destructive and corrosive form” of communism.

Mr. Beattie — who was fired from the White House for taking part in a conference with White Nationalists — is just one of dozens of Trump allies who have built a relationship with the Bolsonaro family over the last four years.

And much of this alliance relies precisely on the type of fake narratives that abound in right-wing U.S. circles: attacks on democratic institutions and on the checks and balances that are necessary to keep democracy alive. 

Over the course of four months, Agência Pública investigated the ties between the U.S. alt-right and Jair Bolsonaro to dissect an alliance that has denigrated democracy in the hemisphere’s two largest countries. Not by coincidence, the same narratives, tactics, and platforms are used by both political movements. 

Mr. Bolsonaro’s hardline policies on crime and immigration, his pro-gun policies, attacks on the media, and continued charges that his enemies plan to oust him via electoral fraud have earned him the nickname “Trump of the Tropics.” 

He and Mr. Trump are friends, and Mr. Bolsonaro backed the former U.S. president on his claims of widespread election fraud in 2020. The Brazilian was the next-to-last head of state to recognize President Joe Biden’s win, just hours after Vladimir Putin and before Kim Jong-Il. 

In return, this September, Mr. Trump effusively backed his friend’s reelection. “He is a wonderful man, and has my Complete & Total Endorsement!!!,” he posted on Truth Social, referring to the Brazilian president as “Tropical Trump.”

Thomas Shannon, the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil between 2010 and 2013 and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2016 to 2018, told Agência Pública before the decisive October 30 that “[Mr.] Bolsonaro has no intention of losing the election.” Defeated, he said the incumbent would follow in Donald Trump’s footsteps and “try to find a way to stay in office.”

Along with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Mr. Bolsonaro has become a darling of the U.S. right wing. The two men, together with Mr. Trump, are the most prominent leaders of a growing right-populist global movement that has attracted the attention of the January 6 Committee in Congress. “The committee is trying to take full measure of the magnitude of the threats that are bearing down on American democracy,” Congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the committee, said.

And there is a global dimension to this threat. “As an individual member of the commission, I am certainly investigating the ties between the Trump regime and the Trump movement with Putin and Orban and Bolsonaro.” He did not speak about the committee’s final report, which has yet to be written.

Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s third son and a federal lawmaker, has built close ties to U.S. conservatives in MAGA circles, an Agência Pública investigation can reveal. 

It all started in August 2018, a few months before his father won the presidency, when Eduardo met Steve Bannon. “We share the same worldview,” Eduardo tweeted, after their meeting at Breitbart’s offices in Manhattan.“We are certainly in touch to join forces, especially against cultural Marxism.” 

In 2019, Mr. Bannon named Eduardo Bolsonaro the South American representative of The Movement, which until then was an entirely European consortium of rightist political parties that Mr. Bannon founded to “support populist nationalism and reject the influence of globalism.”

The Movement never really took off, but Eduardo’s involvement further enhanced his stature in right-wing circles. He was seen socializing with MAGA VIPs at the Trump Hotel in Washington and became a regular speaker at conservative events in the U.S. and worldwide. In total, Agência Pública has identified 77 visits and meetings between Eduardo Bolsonaro and MAGA supporters over the last five years. 

Mark Ivanyo, head of the think tank Republicans for National Renewal, whose group’s primary goals is building bridges between the U.S. and global right, sees Eduardo Bolsonaro as a key figure. “We align with Steve Bannon,” he told Agência Pública. “He has a similar vision of bringing together national parties. It’s the only way to survive and not be crushed by global elitists”.

He called Mr. Orban’s Hungary “the beacon,” but says in Brazil that “Eduardo is our primary partner.” In fact, the president’s son was the headline speaker at his group’s inaugural event in 2020. 

Mr. Ivanyo was one of the Americans who took to Twitter to help spread Brazilian election fraud disinformation. He retweeted Mr. Tyrmand’s post claiming “brazen fraud” had taken place. Ivanyo also drew a comparison with the right’s imaginary fraud in the U.S. 2020 presidential election. “Looks familiar,” he wrote.

But the relationship between Eduardo Bolsonaro and some key figures of the U.S. alt-right goes beyond elections. While he was the head of the lower house’s foreign relations committee, the president’s son was in Washington on January 6, 2021. Months later, on September 7, a group of RePúblican political operatives flew to Brazil when President Bolsonaro tried to stage his own version of the Capitol riot.  

His whereabouts on January 6 have never been disclosed, but on other days during his visit, he posted selfies with Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Matt Schlapp, and Daniel Schneider — the latter two being leaders of CPAC, the American Conservative Union (ACU), the right-wing Washington-based think tank and lobbying group that hosts CPAC events and has been slowly but surely expanding to other corners of the world. 

On the eve of the invasion, Eduardo Bolsonaro met MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of Mr. Trump’s most fanatical supporters and who later said the president should declare martial law if necessary to stay in power. 

On a social media live stream on January 6, Mike Lindell explained the plan to “set up a committee that would give ten days where we could get the evidence” of election fraud. “The whole world is watching. I met with Brazil last night, the president of Brazil’s son” 

Meanwhile, several of Eduardo Bolsonaro’s allies in Brazil’s Congress were taking to social media to spread Trump’s Big Lie. No fewer than six Brazilian lawmakers praised the events of January 6, including Daniel Silveira, arrested last year after threatening Brazilian Supreme Court justices. 

Carla Zambelli and Bia Kicis, two staunch Bolsonaro allies in Congress, also pushed the pro-Trump narrative. Ms. Zambelli tweeted that there was “robust evidence” of fraud. 

A fugitive from Brazilian justice, Allan dos Santos, who runs an Infowars-type operation on his Youtube channel Terça Livre and is often seen alongside the president’s sons, live streamed from Washington on January 6. Colleagues of his called it “a revolution” and “a historic day.” 

Analysis conducted by Agência Pública with Harvard and University of Virginia professor David Nemer point to an orchestrated campaign to spread Donald Trump’s narrative in Brazil using the hashtag #GoTrumpReeleito, crafted specifically for a Brazilian audience. One key spreader of the disinformation campaign later ran for office with Mr. Bolsonaro’s support. 

After the Capitol riot, the Brazilian president was nonchalant. “You know I am connected to [Mr.] Trump so you know my response here,” he told reporters, refusing to condemn the attacks. “There were people who voted three, four times, dead people who voted,” he claimed. 

The congressional committee investigating January 6 has said it is looking into Eduardo Bolsonaro’s presence in Washington. Some press reports suggested that someone in Trump’s inner circle asked him to come to DC to aid and abet the protest at the capital. 

But Thomas Shannon said he believes it was far more likely that Eduardo — who declined comment for this story — traveled to Washington at his father’s request to emphasize his administration’s commitment to Mr. Trump, to observe events, and to look for lessons that might later prove applicable back home — especially given his father’s repeated incantation that he would never accept electoral defeat. 

“People around [Mr.] Bolsonaro, and especially Eduardo, have really studied the events of January 6 and concluded that [Mr.] Trump failed because he lacked institutional support from key sectors, such as the military, and that Bolsonaro needs to figure that out and build that institutional support to stay in power if he loses the election,” he said. He predicted that Mr. Bolsonaro would not be able to do so if he lost the election as he has alienated so many powerful players in Brazil, including a significant chunk of the Army.

While Eduardo Bolsonaro has made regular visits to the U.S. and met with leading conservatives, including former President Trump, there’s simultaneously been a stream of U.S. conservatives — among them top political strategists — who have gone on pilgrimage to Brazil to support President Bolsonaro. However, one of the most secretive meetings had not surfaced until now. 

He urged his supporters to take to the streets on September 7, the country’s Independence Day. “We have three alternatives for me: prison, death, or victory,” Mr. Bolsonaro told a large crowd of supporters who gathered near the presidential palace. “Tell the bastards I’ll never be arrested.” 

Hundreds of thousands obliged Mr. Bolsonaro’s request and flooded the streets of capital cities, holding signs decrying the election system as rigged and asking for a “shutdown of the Supreme Court” and “military intervention.” In São Paulo, the country’s largest city, 125,000 people heard the president vow from a stage to no longer follow the justices’ orders.

Truck drivers interrupted traffic in 14 states, causing fears of food shortages. Some groups planned to invade the Supreme Court but were stopped. The riots only cooled down on September 9 when, under the threat of being impeached, Mr. Bolsonaro signed a letter stating he had never attacked the Supreme Court in the first place. It was yet another blatant lie. 

His actions drew comparisons to Donald Trump’s efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election and his call for supporters to take to the streets, ultimately leading to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

But on September 8, 2021, while the country was still ablaze, a group of prominent American conservatives attended a dinner in Rio de Janeiro at the beachfront Copacabana Palace hotel. 

The dinner was officially hosted by Brazil’s National Confederation of Industry (CNI), roughly equivalent to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. For all intents and purposes, this was officially a business promotion event. 

Most of the Brazilians in attendance were business executives, though there were at least two notable exceptions: Eduardo Bolsonaro and Sérgio Sant’Ana, who in 2020 together launched the Instituto Conservador Liberal think tank, which soon became responsible for organizing CPAC events in Brazil. 

There were a few business officials among the 16 American invitees, but they were significantly outnumbered by politicians, political operatives, and donors. The highest profile American on hand was Senator Mike Lee, an influential lawmaker who initially supported Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election result. 

There were at least four political consultants there, including Sergio Gor, a long-time senior advisor to Senator Rand Paul who in 2020 left his office to take the job of chief of staff for Donald Trump’s reelection Victory Finance Committee. 

Last year, Mr. Gor and Donald Trump Jr. founded Winning Team Publishing, whose first release was a vanity coffee table book of photos of former President Trump, including one with Jair and Eduardo Bolsonaro. Agência Pública found that Winning Team Publishing was registered as an anonymously-owned firm in tax haven Delaware. It also found an anonymously-owned firm called Winning Team LLC, which was incorporated in November 2018 by the same registered agent.  

Also on hand at the dinner was Connor Hickey, identified on the invitation list as being affiliated with Winning Team. A former Rand Paul staffer, his current LinkedIn says he is a legislative correspondent for the U.S. Senate and makes no mention of Winning Team. But Agência Pública found fundraising event invitations for Senators Lee and Paul, and for far-right House member Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who had Connor Hickey as her listed contact, with a winningteamDC.com email address.

When Agência Pública checked FEC records, there were no payments from the Lee, Paul or Boebert campaigns to a company called Winning Team. There were, however, more than USD 500,000 in combined payments from the three campaigns to an anonymously-owned company called Gold Standard Publishing, which was incorporated in July 2020 in Delaware, and by the same registered agent who set up both the Winning Team companies. 

On top of that, Sergio Gor holds the trademark to the name Gold Standard Publishing. FEC records show the firm had at least a dozen other clients, including a Super PAC called Make America Great Again Action, and Florida congressman Matt Gaetz.

Also at the Brazil dinner was Nick Luna, former President Trump’s personal assistant and bodyguard. He was reportedly in the Oval Office on January 6 when Mr. Trump called Vice President Pence to pressure him not to certify the election results. Mr. Luna’s current LinkedIn shows he is a political consultant, but there is no indication of what firm he works for. The fourth political consultant on hand was Doug Stafford, a longtime chief strategist and fundraiser for Senator Rand Paul. 

The dinner was organized, on the Brazilian side, by Sérgio Sant’Ana, Eduardo Bolsonaro’s partner at the Instituto Conservador Liberal (ICL) think tank, and, on the American side, by Sergio Gor.

Messrs. Sant’Ana and Gor sat side by side at a VIP table positioned close to the stage. Throughout his speech, Eduardo Bolsonaro thanked the “two Sergios” for making the meeting possible, and especially Mr. Gor, “for his role in organizing the trip.” The audience applauded.

In an interview with Pública, Sérgio Sant’Ana said that the dinner was organized by Senator Mike Lee and that it had no relationship with the government or the ICL. “It was a private event,” he said. “I don’t exactly know the background of the Americans there, but it was the senator’s [Mike Lee] thing.”

The president of the CNI, Robson Braga de Andrade, was the first to speak. He gave a bland presentation, using PowerPoint slides to illustrate the growth of the Brazilian economy. Then it was the turn of Senator Lee, who stated that “the U.S. is very friendly with Brazil” and the relationship “has to be strengthened.”

Eduardo Bolsonaro was more political than the other speakers. He talked about how his father was similar to Donald Trump, and how U.S. and Brazilian conservatives were so tightly knit. Eduardo also thanked the Americans on hand for meeting with his father a few days earlier.

Before landing in Rio de Janeiro, most of the American delegation passed through Brasília, where they met with Jair Bolsonaro — even though the only name on the president’s official agenda is Senator Mike Lee, with whom he met for 45 minutes on September 6. 

Mike Lee was one of the speakers at the first CPAC in Brazil, held in São Paulo in October 2019. During the event, Eduardo Bolsonaro signed a cooperation agreement with American conservatives to exchange information and knowledge. Three leaders of the American Conservative Union (ACU) — Mercedes and Matt Schlap and Charles Gerow — signed the agreement, along with Mike Lee.

Despite not appearing on the official agenda, Republican Party donor and Texas businessman Don Huffines also attended the meeting with Jair Bolsonaro on September 6. The meeting was publicized on his personal website. 

“Earlier this month, I visited a courageous leader who shocked the world with his election victory, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro,” Mr. Huffines wrote. “We talked about our shared Christian values ​​and discussed strategies to not only tackle the swamp of the establishment, but defeat it,” he added.

Mr. Huffines had never been to Brazil but had followed things there since Mr. Bolsonaro’s election. “President Bolsonaro understands that liberty is divine, and rooted in God,” he said. “Western civilization is at stake for Christians. This is good versus evil. We need protection from the onslaught of transgenderism, socialism, communism. [Mr.] Bolsonaro, [Mr.] Orban and President Trump to a certain extent understand that.” 

Another prominent U.S. politician met with Mr. Bolsonaro on September 7.  Republican Congressman Mark Green — who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election on January 6 — spoke at the CPAC event, which happened just days before Mr. Bolsonaro’s attempted insurrection. On September 5, the same day of his CPAC appearance, he had lunch with pro-Bolsonaro lawmakers Bia Kicis and Filipe Barros, later saying that they talked about “vote integrity policies.”

Bia Kicis is one of the most influential spreaders of fake news about fraud in the U.S. and in the Brazilian elections. She took to Twitter to ask Mr. Bolsonaro not to recognize Joe Biden’s election, “Let’s wait for the [U.S.] judiciary to decide who is the winner. Until then all manifestation from Brazilian authorities is hasty and disrespects U.S. justice and people,” she tweeted, three days after the U.S. elections.

Mr. Green was in Brasilia for six days and left on September 8. The American Conservative Union paid USD 15,000 for his visit, according to public records. 

The would-be star of CPAC was Donald Trump Jr., but he canceled his visit and addressed the crowd virtually. He said that the elections in Brazil would decide if the country was “going towards socialism or will continue with freedom.” 

A year later, he repeated the same motto in a video supporting Mr. Bolsonaro’s re-election, calling the Brazilian president “the only person who can stop the spread of communism and socialism in South America,” in a video reaching over 110,000 views on Twitter.

Viktor Orban and Donald Trump followed suit. While Mr. Orban said he had seen “very few leaders as exceptional” as Mr. Bolsonaro, Mr. Trump said he hoped “he will be [Brazil’s] leader for a long time.” 

Steve Bannon admitted in an interview with the BBC to having spent “a lot of my time talking to people on the backstage” of the Brazilian elections. 

“I have no doubt U.S. political consultants are providing advice to Jair Bolsonaro,” Mr. Shannon said. “Why else would they be spending time down there? They’re not at the beach drinking caipirinhas.” 

“Everyone who follows Brazilian politics prays every day for Jair [Bolsonaro] to win the election,” Charlie Gerow, a GOP strategist and vice chair of the American Conservative Union (ACU), told Agência Pública. He said he is unaware of any formal support for Mr. Bolsonaro’s re-election, which he noted would be illegal, but “to the extent that advice could be legally given, if it was asked for, I’m sure it would be given.” 

Much more than advice, over the past year, the U.S. social network Gettr — run by Donald Trump’s former spokesman Jason Miller — has been sponsoring political events that support Mr. Bolsonaro’s re-election campaign. The events have been organized by the ICL, the think tank set up by Eduardo Bolsonaro and Sérgio Sant’Ana.

Gettr has provided support to at least four ICL-organized meetings between September 2021 and June 2022: two CPACs and two regional conservative congresses called Brasil Profundo. The events featured the Gettr logo as a sponsor.

Questioned by Agência Pública, Gettr did not disclose direct or indirect amounts for this partnership. At the U.S. version of CPAC, which took place in March, Gettr disbursed USD 75,000 to be a “partner sponsor.”. 

For political scientist Carolina Botelho, the events are part of the electoral strategy of the Brazilian far-right. Fernando Neisser, head of the political and electoral law commission of the São Paulo bar association, said the events could be construed as “premature campaigning,” which is illegal. Mr. Miller did not respond to requests for comment, but later posted on social media that a Portuguese version of this article was “fake news.” 

“CPAC Brasil was organized and conducted well within all permissible guidelines, and well before the August 16 beginning to election season,” he wrote.

Jason Miller also attended CPAC Brazil in 2021. On September 6, he appeared on Steve Bannon’s podcast, saying, “in a lot of ways, President Bolsonaro has the same superpowers that President Trump does.” The following morning, Eduardo Bolsonaro escorted Messrs. Miller, Tyrmand, and Mario Balaban, a Project Veritas spokesman, to the presidential palace. 

They chatted with President Bolsonaro and members of his family by a swimming pool. The Brazilians wanted to “kick the tires” on Gettr, Mr. Miller told the New York Times.

When leaving the country that afternoon, federal police detained Messrs. Miller, Tyrmand, Balaban and Gerald Brant, a Brazilian-born New York-based financial executive, at the airport. A longtime Bolsonaro family advisor, Mr. Brant is the main intermediary between the U.S. and Brazilian right, several sources told Agência Pública.

Before Bolsonaro became president, Mr. Brant brokered introductions for him with important U.S. business leaders, at think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations, and with important conservative political figures, including Steve Bannon. 

Police questioned Messrs. Miller and Brant for three hours about how Gettr could spread misinformation in Brazil, on the order of a Supreme Court justice. No one in the group was charged with wrongdoing and they were allowed to leave the country on a private plane. “It was just farcical,” Mr. Miller was quoted as saying. This didn’t stop him from coming back, however. Mr. Miller was in Brazil twice this year alone. 

Matthew Tyrmand blamed the airport incident on partisan motives of anti-Bolsonaro members of Brazil’s Supreme Court. He then wrote an enraged 4,600-word essay on an alt-right U.S. website, Creative Destruction Media, claiming that the court was a “rotting corpse of a body” which can be understood as “a pure political representation of hard leftism.” Brazil, he claimed, is “the most important election battleground against global communism in 2022.” 

Hence, he again mimicked Steve Bannon in spreading conspiracy theories brewed in the steamy Brazilian alt-right underworld bathhouse. In December 2021, Mr. Bannon said on his podcast that Brazil’s Supreme Court is “filled with overt communists” — which is a lie. This would be a problem during a nationwide vote as the court “controls the mechanism that supervises the elections.” 

“They’re using Dominion machines coming from Venezuela. People want auditable and paper ballots in Brazil,” he added. The story about ballots coming from Venezuela has been debunked several times by fact-checkers. 

Though defeated, Mr. Bolsonaro’s political future on the global stage is closely tied to the international relations built by his son Eduardo in recent years, which go back to Steve Bannon. The latter admitted as much to the BCC while touting Eduardo and Jair’s charisma. 

“What I try to do, especially with Eduardo, is talk about how [to develop] a populist nationalist movement in Latin America, how to connect it, get people from each country to communicate, share ideas, say what’s working or not. I’ve always tried to be a sort of exchange point, to make sure we can make connections.” 

Mark Ivanyo, of the think tank Republicans for National Renewal, also sees a bright future ahead for President Bolsonaro’s son. His organization used its official Twitter account to wish “good luck” to the Brazilian president on Election Day and voiced optimism about his heir’s political future. “[Eduardo] is the best and only person who can succeed his father when that time comes.” 

Agência Pública contacted Eduardo Bolsonaro, Mike Lee, and Sergio Gor for comments with no success. We also tried to contact other members of the delegation that visited Brazil.