The reason for Bolsonaro's fears of election fraud was that voting in the elections was conducted using voting machines. He pointed out that voting machines can be relatively easily hacked. Incidentally, this was also pointed out by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who lost his job as part of an out-of-court settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.
The difference in the number of votes was only five percent, which prompted Bolsonaro, the commanders of the army and navy, members of the secret services, and others to make allegations of fraud and also file a lawsuit with the STF. However, the president of the STF dismissed the lawsuit.
A week after Lula's inauguration on January 1, 2023, a crowd of supporters of the right-wing ex-president stormed several buildings, including the presidential palace, the Supreme Court, and the parliament. It took a whole day for the federal police to break the protesters' resistance.
Observation from the White House
The STF broadcasts its proceedings publicly, and the trial is also being followed in the White House. US President Donald Trump, an ally of Bolsonaro, announced that he and his entire team would be watching the live broadcast. Also present will be the son of the former president and congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, as well as journalist Paulo Figueiredo, who deals with allegations of corruption against people close to the president of the court, Alexandre de Moraes, in his work.
Trump will decide on the imposition of sanctions against Brazilian institutions under the so-called Magnitsky Act based on the Federal Court's ruling. The 2012 law on accountability for compliance with the law was passed by the US Congress in response to the death of tax advisor Sergei Magnitsky, who in 2008 had uncovered a massive corruption scheme in the Russian government.
The measures that the US government can use against the Brazilian government include freezing assets, revoking visas and entry bans, and imposing individual sanctions.
The US Treasury Department has already imposed sanctions on de Moraes for “abusing his position to approve arbitrary pretrial detentions and suppress freedom of expression.” The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which administers the sanctions, made this decision on July 30.
“Alexandre de Moraes has decided to be judge and jury in an illegal witch hunt against US and Brazilian citizens and companies,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, adding that the judge “is responsible for repressive censorship, arbitrary arrests that violate human rights, and politicized prosecutions, including the prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro.”
One of the reasons for the sanctions against de Moraes, according to the Treasury Department, is the fact that the judge has ordered excessively long pretrial detention in many high-profile cases, often without publishing the charges. He also issued a one-year arrest warrant for an American journalist—likely Michael Shellenberger, who has long been involved in Network X with regard to his abuse of power.
In the Bolsonaro case, de Moraes had his house monitored and prohibited unannounced visits. He only lifted this measure at the beginning of August, probably in response to the first wave of sanctions. However, since July, the former president has been required to wear a tracking device on his ankle.
Trump has also imposed 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian imports in connection with the trial, which he describes as a “witch hunt.” After the verdict, Bolsonaro Jr. and Figueiredo are to register the members of the court who voted for the conviction and locate their assets in the US and Europe, which will then be frozen by the US government.
Of the eleven judges of the STF, five, including de Moraes, were selected by lottery. However, according to observer Glenn Greenwald, the composition of the Senate, which is hearing the case against Bolsonaro, his ministers, and representatives of the armed forces, already gives “an idea of what the verdict will be.”
Flávio Dino was Minister of Justice during President Lula's previous term in office. Cristiano Zanin is Lula's long-time personal lawyer and also chairman of the five-member Senate. To achieve a majority, only one judge is needed, who, according to Greenwald, will be Moraes himself, “who is monomaniacally obsessed with the idea of destroying the entire Bolsonaro movement.”
The former reporter for the Guardian newspaper, who published the documents of American whistleblower Edward Snowden, thus joined others who question the independence of the Brazilian Federal Court and the fairness of the trial against the former president.
The supremacy of the court and the defense of democracy
De Moraes and Attorney General Paulo Gonet spoke at the beginning of the trial about “democracy, independent institutions,” and “a growing economy.” “A democratic constitutional state does not mean peace or the absence of conflict,” said the court president, adding that the trial of the former president was merely “the continuation of the application of the constitution.”
The judge also rejected any interference in national sovereignty, referring to the American threats of sanctions. “Unfortunately, in the course of these criminal proceedings, the existence of a deliberate and conscious act by a genuine criminal organization has been established, which has committed cowardly and treacherous acts in a manner never before seen in our country, in order to force the judiciary, and in particular the STF, to subject the work of the court to the control of another state,” explained de Moraes.
“This pressure, this attempt to obstruct the proceedings, has not affected the impartiality and independence of the judges of this Supreme Court, who, Mr. President, will proceed as we are doing today, in the context of a regular court proceeding that is being followed by the entire society and the entire Brazilian press,” he told the White House.
“National sovereignty cannot, must not, and will never be disregarded, negotiated, or coerced, as it is one of the foundations of the Federative Republic of Brazil,” he added.
Prosecutor Gonet also said that Bolsonaro's alleged conspirators planned to assassinate de Moraes and, allegedly, President Lula and his vice president, Geraldo Alckmin. The plan was to be called “Green and Yellow Dagger” after Brazil's national colors, but the defense dismissed this claim as unfounded.
The crimes of violent overthrow of the rule of law and coup d'état are defined in Article 359 of the Brazilian Penal Code, whose 2021 amendment was paradoxically signed by Bolsonaro himself, recalled the Portuguese editorial team of BBC Television.
The trial will continue on Wednesday and then on September 9, 10, and 12.
The Monroe Doctrine in practice
Jair Bolsonaro is a politician of the same ilk as Donald Trump. Both rode the populist wave in the second decade of this century, which was characterized by resistance to migration, questioning of the official narrative on the coronavirus, rejection of job cuts, and attempts at social manipulation through the promotion of transgenderism.
Trump therefore sees him as a valuable ally, along with other hard-line politicians such as Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Daniel Noboa of Ecuador. Although all of the aforementioned “strongmen” – as the weekly magazine Politico calls them – are reviled in the media, they are generally popular.
In addition to strengthening the military and the security apparatus as a whole, they are also advocating for the wider use of cryptocurrencies. Since 2021, El Salvador has had state reserves in Bitcoin, and the US has also taken a similar step.
Trump considers the aforementioned heads of state to be his allies in an area that the US has considered its “backyard” since 1823. That was the year the United States adopted the Monroe Doctrine.
Then-President James Monroe declared in the US Congress that the Western Hemisphere was “closed” to European colonization, but that Washington would not interfere in European affairs in return. This doctrine was violated in both world wars.
The American empire thus intervenes in “its” space to the greatest extent possible. In addition to supporting allied politicians, it punishes potential opponents, mainly through tariffs and embargoes. Brazil pays 50 percent customs duties on imports to the US, and sanctions have been imposed on Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his judges and police officers, including the freezing of assets.
Ortega has approved the construction of a canal to compete with the American Panama Canal. This is considered “American” because the US in particular continues to benefit from trade there – even though President Jimmy Carter placed it under international control in the 1970s.
In recent weeks, several US warships have sailed off the coast of Venezuela to fight the “Cartel de los Soles” cartel. This cartel is classified as a “narco-terrorist” organization in the US, which allows the Pentagon to use force.
The cartel is also linked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is known as an opponent of American imperialism. However, the emblem with the sun motif is used by the Venezuelan armed forces, as the US Treasury Department pointed out in its report on sanctions.
Maduro allegedly also uses the Tren de Aragua cartel, whose ship carrying a cargo of drugs was destroyed by the US Navy on Tuesday, to weaken US influence. Maduro, his defense minister Vladimir Padrino López, as well as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Colombian President Gustavo Petro protested against the increased US military presence in the Caribbean.
Trump considers all of the above to be his opponents. Eight warships and two thousand members of the Marine Corps will therefore apparently continue to operate in the Caribbean. Maduro is still eligible for the reward that the White House chief recently increased to $50 million.
Not just geopolitics
In addition to applying his well-known foreign policy doctrine, Trump also has a personal motive for supporting Bolsonaro. He himself has been the target of several lawsuits for his alleged role in a “criminal conspiracy” that led to the riots outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Protesters, also motivated by allegations of election fraud, surrounded the seat of the American legislature on the very day that both houses of Congress confirmed the results of the presidential election. Some of them managed to break into the building, although, as footage later released showed, they did not endanger anyone's life or health.
Trump was subsequently charged at the federal level and in the state of Georgia for allegedly attempting to interfere with the election results. However, Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis later resigned after it was revealed that she had employed her lover Nathan Wade, and special prosecutor Jack Smith withdrew the lawsuit after Trump's victory and submitted his resignation.
However, the personal friendship between Trump and Bolsonaro convinced many on the left worldwide that the retired Brazilian Army general would attempt something similar.
“Members of the Brazilian Congress warned that the September 7 [2021] mobilization was inspired by the January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol, when then-President Donald Trump called on his supporters to stop the ‘kidnapping’ with false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election,” they wrote in an open letter.
Signatories included former Spanish Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Socialist philosopher Cornel West, Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush, Colombian Gustavo Petro, French far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
To confirm their belief, they had to wait until January 2023. Now they must wait for confirmation of the link between the unrest and Bolsonaro's coordination, which should not be difficult in a highly politicized process.
