Brazil: The Attorney General wants to investigate Bolsonaro

The Brazilian Attorney General wants to investigate the riots in Brasilia against former President Jair Bolsonaro for alleged “incitement and intellectual authorship”. Yesterday, the authority said it had asked the Supreme Court to put Bolsonaro on the list of people to be investigated.

By posting a video he “questioned the legitimacy of the 2022 presidential election,” the statement said, “publicly inciting the ‘extreme right’ to commit a crime.” The video was posted two days after Bolsonaro supporters violently stormed the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court and was later deleted.

The prosecutor’s office said the video, although it was taken after the riot, could serve as “conclusive evidence” warranting “a worldwide investigation into the accused’s actions before and after January 8, 2023”.

A discussion about Bolsonaro’s third-party card fees

Meanwhile, revelations about payments made by the former Brazilian head of state to the official presidential credit card have raised questions. The president’s credit card data during his four-year term were published on the official website of the government of his successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The releases were among a series of thousands of documents that Bolsonaro kept secret for 100 years and that his successor declared obsolete. As a result, a total of 27.6 million reais (about five million euros) were spent on the credit card, which Bolsonaro and 21 members of his team had access to.

For example, about €217,000 was spent during Bolsonaro’s official Christmas holidays in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Almost €13,000 was paid on January 2, 2022 at a gas station in the southern state of Santa Catarina, where Bolsonaro caused a stir by riding Jet ski while floods swept several regions in Brazil.

20,000 euros for the restaurant

The largest cost of food is also the one that raises the most questions: about 20,000 euros spent in one fell swoop in a modest restaurant in Boa Vista, in the northern Amazonian state of Roraima. That’s enough to order more than 2,000 servings of the most expensive item on the menu, chicken fried in cassava flour, at nine euros.

The president’s credit card was also used to pay a total of 65,000 euros at a bakery in Rio de Janeiro over four years, nearly 10,000 euros of which coincided with the wedding of his son Eduardo. A total of around €1,500 was spent in ice cream parlors – with 62 purchases made in five establishments.

Bolsonaro has bragged several times during his tenure that, unlike his predecessors, he has “never spent a dime” on the president’s credit card.