The Attorney General of the Republic, Paulo Gonet, defended on Wednesday the resumption of an inquiry investigating whether former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) interfered in the Federal Police (PF) during his government. Gonet wants the PF to clarify if there is a connection to another investigation regarding an alleged parallel structure set up in the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin).
This inquiry, the first opened against Bolsonaro after becoming president, had been stalled since May 2024, when the rapporteur, Minister Alexandre de Moraes, questioned if Gonet agreed with a request for closure made in the previous administration of the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR).
The Attorney General advocated for the inquiry to be returned to the Federal Police, which must compare the evidence collected in this investigation with the Abin Parallel probe. The goal is to analyze statements by former Justice Minister Sergio Moro, now a senator, that Bolsonaro wanted access to confidential information.
In June, the PF pointed out Bolsonaro’s involvement in an illegal spying scheme at Abin. However, the former president was not indicted because he was already facing charges for organized crime in the coup plot case, for which he was recently convicted by the STF. It is now up to the PGR to decide whether to prosecute Bolsonaro and the other 36 individuals indicted in the case.
The case began after O GLOBO revealed in March 2023 the purchase of a spy system by the agency to monitor the location of pre-determined targets across the country.
The inquiry into possible interference in the PF was opened in April 2020 after Moro accused Bolsonaro of attempting to interfere in the PF. The PGR then requested an inquiry to investigate both: Bolsonaro for possible interference, and Moro for possible false accusation if the claim was not true.
In March 2022, the PF closed the inquiry and concluded that there was no crime committed by either party. In September of the same year, the then Deputy Attorney General of the Republic, Lindôra Araújo, requested the case to be closed. Lindôra was the second-in-command to Augusto Aras, appointed by Bolsonaro to the PGR.
Considering the circumstances surrounding the case and a thorough analysis of the evidence presented, the Deputy Attorney General stated, ‘There is no way to attribute criminal acts to President Jair Bolsonaro and former Minister Sergio Fernando Moro.’ However, Paulo Gonet now believes that it is necessary to resume the investigations. The Attorney General asserted that it can be inferred from Moro’s statements at the time that the change in the PF’s leadership, demanded by Bolsonaro, ‘likely had as its real motivation the obtaining of privileged information on confidential investigations and the possibility of interfering in investigative work involving the Chief of the Federal Executive Power, his family, and political allies.’ Gonet argued, ‘It is essential, therefore, to ascertain more broadly whether there were indeed interferences or attempts to interfere in the investigations mentioned in the dialogues and the ex-Minister’s testimony, through the use of the State structure and the clandestine obtaining of sensitive data.’
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