Bolsonaro transfers responsibility for spying on Lula to Heleno in 2022

In an interview published on Friday night, the 9th, former president Jair Bolsonaro denied involvement with the idea of ​​infiltrating agents from the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) in the campaign of then candidate Lula (PT). In the interview, Bolsonaro attributes the initiative to the former chief minister of the Institutional Security Office (GSI), retired general Augusto Heleno.

This possibility was mentioned by the retired general during Bolsonaro's meeting with his ministers on July 5, 2022, the video of which was seized by the Federal Police and released by the Federal Supreme Court this Friday, 9. “At a given moment (of the meeting) , Heleno said he was going to follow both sides, find out about both sides. It is the work of his intelligence, in which I had no participation whatsoever”, said Bolsonaro in the interview with TV Record.

“I rarely used the intelligence we have, from the Armed Forces, Abin itself, the Federal Police. I don't see anything wrong with that. Heleno wanted to expand on the subject, I said that wasn't the case. You're going to have an operation, do it. Abin has the power to carry out operations to preserve people,” said Bolsonaro.

In an excerpt from the recorded meeting Heleno says: “We are going to put together a scheme to monitor what both sides (the campaigns) are doing”. Moments later, Bolsonaro interrupts him. “General, I ask that you do not continue your observation here any further,” he says. “We talk privately, in our room, about what Abin is doing,” says Bolsonaro. The meeting took place in the East Room, on the second floor of Palácio do Planalto. The recording was obtained by the STF from Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro's former aide-de-camp, who signed a plea bargain in September last year.

Cid's information was used by the PF to launch the Tempus Veritatis operation, last Thursday, the 8th, which included 33 search and seizure warrants against Bolsonaro's allies. The former president himself had his passport confiscated and is banned from leaving the country. In addition, four former Bolsonaro advisors were placed in preventive detention. Throughout the hour and a half meeting, Bolsonaro insists that the 2022 elections would be rigged to give Lula victory and insists that his ministers do “something” before the election date.