Why did the coup attempt by Bolsonaro and his allies fail, according to the PF? Understand

The plan to coup the Brazilian State and contradict the popular will at the polls by preventing the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) had the approval and planning of then President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), federal government ministers, military personnel from high-ranking officers and civilians allied with the then head of the Executive, according to the Federal Police (PF). Each one had a specific “mission” in the coup plot, according to the investigations, with the suspects’ structured actions in six groups.

The objective was to discredit the electoral system, incite the barracks and, finally, with the approval of the high command of the Armed Forces, cross the line of the Constitution. The insurgents, however, failed in an essential point of the criminal plot: they did not organize the troop unity.

The decision by Minister Alexandre Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), in authorizing the Tempus Veritatis operation, revealed the collusion of members of the federal government with the military in orchestrating the coup. There was a lack of support from the high command of the Armed Forces, as described by the investigators: “The consummation of the coup d'état was frustrated due to circumstances beyond the control of the agents”.

The investigation demonstrated that the suspects acted, knowingly outside the law, since the end of the second round of the presidential elections, in a plan to subvert the Democratic Rule of Law. One of the targets of the scammers, Alexandre de Moraes, says in the decision that the “expectations of those investigated to be successful in the aforementioned criminal enterprise remained throughout the month of December, even going into January 2023, already during the term of office of the current President of the Republic , especially when the coup acts took place on January 8, 2023.”

The criminal plot began to be designed before the 2022 presidential election. On July 5, 2022, faced with Brazilians' growing lack of interest in voting, Bolsonaro met with then ministers Anderson Torres (Justice), general Paulo Sérgio Oliveira (Defense) , Augusto Heleno (GSI), with former minister General Walter Braga Netto (Casa Civil), and with General Mário Fernandes, then deputy head of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, among others, to discuss the electoral process that was approaching.

The head of the Executive reinforced the need to spread disinformation against the Electoral Court, in an attempt to discredit a possible victory for the opposition candidate, Lula, “with the aim of maintaining and remaining in power for his group”.

“The meeting, according to the Federal Police, also aimed to demand active conduct from those present in promoting illegal disinformation and attacks on the Electoral Court: promoting and disseminating, in each of their respective areas, disinformation regarding the fairness of the voting system, using the structure of the Brazilian State for illicit purposes that deviate from the public interest”, says Moraes in the decision.

This would be one of the fronts of the coup group in the “center of disinformation and attacks on the electoral system” which had the objective, according to the PF, of encouraging the Bolsonarists to remain in front of the barracks to “create the environment conducive to the execution of a coup d’état.”

“This narrative served, as one of the essential elements, to keep demonstrations in front of military installations mobilized, after the electoral defeat and, with this, give a false perception of popular support, pressuring members of the Armed Forces to join the coup d'état. in progress”, says the STF minister.

On another front, Filipe Garcia Martins Pereira, then special advisor for International Affairs to the Presidency of the Republic, worked in the radical wing of the government. He handed Bolsonaro a document that detailed “considerations” regarding alleged interference by the Judiciary in the Executive Branch and, in the end, ordered the arrest of several authorities, including ministers Alexandre de Moraes and Gilmar Mendes, from the STF, in addition to the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG). The PF believes that the former president had direct participation in the edition of the “coup draft” that circulated among his allies after the second round of elections.

“When Filipe Martins was accompanied by lawyer Amauri Feres Saad, Jair Bolsonaro would have read and asked Filipe to change the orders contained in the draft. The represented person then returned a few days later to Palácio da Alvorada, accompanied by the aforementioned jurist, with the amended document, in accordance with the guidelines given”, says Moraes’ decision.

After the adjustments requested by the former head of the Executive, Bolsonaro reportedly agreed to the terms and summoned the commanders of the Armed Forces, Admiral Almir Garnier (Navy), General Freire Gomes (Army) and Brigadier Batista Júnior (Air Force), to attend to Palácio da Alvorada, on the same day, “in order to present them with the draft and pressure them to join the coup d’état”.

It was the first step in the intimidation campaign that would be carried out against the command of the Armed Forces in an attempt to gain the support and unity of the troops for the coup. Names linked to the Palácio do Planalto were, according to the PF, responsible for the contact and pressure against the commanders. Braga Netto and former presidential aide-de-camp Mauro Cid focused on choosing targets, for the “amplification of personal attacks directed at military personnel in command positions, who resisted coup attacks, in coordination of conduct that identifies the core responsible for inciting military personnel to join the coup d’état.”

In one of the intercepted conversations, the PF details that Mauro Cid was aware that the support of the Armed Forces would be essential for the plan: “Because if it is not, if the Force does not set fire, it is the status quo that remains there as it was. planned, that was being done, that was being taken into consideration in the meetings, okay?”

As shown by the Estadãothe attempt to discredit the Army High Command (ACE) was a fundamental part of the conspiracy born within the Palácio do Planalto to divide the corporation, pit the troops against the commanders who resisted the idea and consummate the coup d'état.

One of the fronts of this strategy was to discredit the commanders by accusing them, through the “hate office” on social media. The Federal Police investigation exposed the behind-the-scenes of this frying process by finding messages in which Braga Netto reports that the then Army commander, Freire Gomes, was silent and undecided about the coup.

The former Minister of the Civil House led a veiled but aggressive campaign to pressure officers of the Forces who refused to join the coup plan articulated by Bolsonaro and his closest allies.

Conversations recovered by the PF show how the then Army commander came into the minister's sights. In one of the dialogues, in December 2022, Braga Netto states that the “blame for what is happening and will happen lies with General Freire Gomes”. “Omission and indecision are not the responsibility of a combatant”, added the minister. “Offer him his head. Shit.”

The messages were exchanged with retired Army captain Ailton Gonçalves Moraes Barros, arrested by the Federal Police in the investigation into vaccine card
fraud.

Braga Netto also attacked Lieutenant-Brigadier Carlos Almeida Baptista Júnior, who at the time was commander of the Air Force, called a “traitor to the country”. “It makes his life and his family’s life hell,” advised the minister.

The PF discovered that Bolsonaro's most radical allies even coordinated, with high-ranking officers, a letter to the Army commander to serve as an “instrument of pressure”.

The Attorney General's Office (PGR) also highlighted that “personal attacks on military personnel who were undecided about joining the coup d'état plan” had been coordinated.

The resistance of the Forces' high command to the coup was demonstrated in another conversation intercepted by the PF. In one of the messages attached to the report, retired Army colonel Ailton Gonçalves Moraes Barros criticizes the commanders for “making life difficult for PR” by “standing against” the coup plot.

“In this sense, once again, the investigation identifies an informative element confirming that those investigated attempted to execute a coup d'état, to keep the then president Jair Bolsonaro in power, which was not carried out due to circumstances beyond their control”, says the PF .

The troop's annoyance was also recorded in a conversation between Army Colonel Marcelo Costa Câmara, then special advisor to the Presidency, and Mauro Cid. Câmara is appointed as a member of the nucleus that fed Bolsonaro with information that would help him consummate the coup d'état. He was one of those pre-emptively arrested in this Thursday's operation.

Chamber forwards to Mauro Cid a message attributed to the then military commander of the South, Fernando Soares e Silva, in which the military reprimands the troops for “possible active duty adherence” to “this type of initiative”, stating that it is “inconceivable”. In response, Cid simply says: “It was expected.”

O Estadão showed that some of the main members of the command were against the coup adventure. They were generals with troop command, such as Tomás Miguel Ribeiro Paiva (military commander of the Southeast), Richard Nunes (military commander of the Northeast), Fernando Soares e Silva (military commander of the South) and André Luiz Novaes Miranda (military commander of the East).

On November 24, the Army commander, Freire Gomes, participated, according to Lieutenant Colonel Cid's statement, in a meeting with President Bolsonaro. In it, Bolsonaro consulted military leaders about a plan for a coup, canceling the elections. Garnier, according to Cid, would have made his troops available to the president. Freire Gomes reacted. He said – according to Cid's version – no to the coup. But he did not inform the Federal Public Ministry or any other authority about the content of the conversation.