On Thursday, Federal Police raided the home and office of Congressman Carlos Jordy, a member of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party and the chief opposition whip in the House. This was the 24th stage in an ongoing operation related to last year’s January 8 riots in Brasília — and the first to actually target something of a big fish.
Since hordes of pro-Bolsonaro far-right radicals stormed and ransacked the presidential palace, Congress, and the Supreme Court early last year, both lawmakers and feds have been trying to identify those who incited, financed, and organized the failed insurrection.
The report of the congressional hearing committee created to investigate the January 8 riots proposed the investigation of 61 people, most notably Mr. Bolsonaro himself, but did not include any lawmakers on the list.
This was an incomplete assessment. As The Brazilian Report has shown, in late November 2022, after the election but before Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office as president, far-right lawmakers used a Senate hearing to very publicly incite an insurrection-like movement.
Then-Congresswoman Aline Sleutjeswas the most explicit at the time: “We need to act fast,” she said during the hearing. “On December 12, there is a certification ceremony that they want to happen.”
Lula was scheduled to be certified by the Superior Electoral Court, the final formal step to make him eligible for inauguration.
The certification ceremony took place without incident, but hours later on the same day, groups of Bolsonaro supporters torched a bus in Brasília and attempted to storm the Federal...
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