An official letter sent to the STF (Supreme Federal Court), the Republic’s Deputy Attorney General defended the continuation of the investigation launched to investigate the attacks made by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to the electoral system and electronic voting machines during a live broadcast on his social media in August.
The president appealed to the Supreme Court to have the investigation filed, claiming that the observations and criticisms he said were made “within the lawful scope of the exercise of freedom of expression”.
However, for the PGR (Attorney General’s Office), “there are signs that there may have been undue disclosure of false and/or unreliable information”. For her, “the closing of a criminal investigation before the conclusion of investigations is an exceptional measure”.
Furthermore, according to “the analysis of the existence of evidence of the practice of illegal activities” disallows the archiving of the investigation. “[The case of archiving is] only admitted when the unusual nature of the conduct.
The incidence of the cause of extinguishing the punishment or the flagrant absence of evidence of authorship and materiality, under the STF jurisprudence, defended the Deputy Attorney General of the Republic.
Last week, Bolsonaro was summoned by the Federal Police to testify within the scope of the investigation.
In late July of this year, Bolsonaro broadcast live on social media, doubting the reliability of the electronic voting machines and guaranteeing that the 2018 elections were rigged. As early as the beginning of August, he published documents related to a Federal Police inquiry into a cyber attack against the court’s website in 2018. At the time, he claimed that the investigation was evidence of fraud in the election in which he was elected president of the Republic.
The TSE (Superior Electoral Court) guaranteed that the attack on its internal system investigated by the PF did not pose any risk to the integrity of the 2018 elections . The Electoral Court also stated that, since that time, new precautions and layers of protection were introduced to increase the security of other computerised systems due to the change in the global cybersecurity scenario.
The Electoral Court then requested an investigation against Bolsonaro from the STF on account of the disclosure of the confidential inquiry and the accusations against the Court, a request that was accepted by Minister Alexandre.
During the investigation, the Federal Police found similarities between Bolsonaro’s behavior and the ongoing investigation at the Supreme Court, which investigates the production of false news and offenses against STF ministers .
“There is no doubt that the conduct of the President of the Republic insinuated the practice of illegal acts by members of the Supreme Court, using the modus operandi of mass dissemination schemes on social networks, with the aim of harming or exposing the danger of harm the independence of the Judiciary, the Rule of Law and Democracy,” said the PF, alerting to the possibility of a criminal organization behind the president’s speeches.
The PF says that can be indicted for at least eight offenses libel, defamation, slander, incitement to crime, apology for crime or criminal criminal association, slanderous denunciation and crime against the Electoral Code.
