The Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonarodid not appear this Friday to testify before the Federal Police in Brasilia, as a Supreme Court judge had ordered him the day before, opening a new chapter of tensions with the judiciary.
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The far-right president was due to appear in person at 2:00 p.m. local time (5:00 p.m. GMT) at the headquarters of the Federal Police (PF) in the capital, at the request of Supreme Federal Court (STF) Judge Alexandre de Moraes, as part of an investigation against the president over disclosure of confidential documents.
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Moraes determined the face-to-face interrogation for this Friday, after the deadline for Bolsonaro himself to choose a day and place to testify, a prerogative that he has as president.
After the summons, and with 11 minutes left before the established time, the Attorney General of the Union (AGU), Bruno Bianco, filed a new appeal requesting that the president be excused from the interrogation, something that was again rejected by the judge.
The AGU, which maintains that Bolsonaro has a constitutional right not to appear, asks that Moraes’ decision be reversed or at least evaluated by the court’s plenary of 11 judges.
Dozens of journalists gathered at the Federal Police headquarters in Brasilia, waiting for any new movement by the court or the president.
The investigation, opened in August 2021, seeks to determine whether the president improperly disclosed confidential documents to question the reliability of the electoral system.
In a live broadcast and on his social networks, Bolsonaro then published a police report regarding a cyber attack on the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in 2018.
The president released these documents, according to the TSE protected by summary secrecy, with the intention of proving that the electronic voting system used since 1996 in Brazil is not reliable, a theory that has never been corroborated by any competent body.
According to political analyst Creomar De Souza, from the consulting firm Dharma, this Friday’s episode is “a new chapter” in the confrontation between Bolsonaro and Moraes, who authorized the opening of several investigations against him.
Bolsonaro has publicly and harshly criticized various decisions by Moraes. And the judge “whenever he could, has exposed Bolsonaro to show that he does not have the capacity to face justice, and summoning him to testify personally ends up being an important symbolic message” in that sense, the analyst points out.
Bolsonaro had already been interrogated by PF agents last November, in the context of another investigation authorized by Moraes, which seeks to determine if he tried to interfere with the Federal Police in files related to his relatives. On that occasion, the president answered questions at the Planalto Palace, seat of the Presidency in Brasilia.
AFP
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