By Ricardo Brito
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s federal police will investigate an alleged plan by Defense Ministry officials to draft a report on the 2022 election campaign to back up then-President Jair Bolsonaro’s baseless accusations that electronic voting machines were vulnerable to fraud, a police source said on Tuesday. . .
The source, who asked not to be named, told Reuters investigators were planning to call retired Gen. Paulo Sergio Nogueira, who at the time was Bolsonaro’s defense minister, to testify.
Computer programmer Walter Delgatti told lawmakers last week that Bolsonaro had asked him to manipulate a voting device to show Brazil’s electoral formula open to fraud.
Delgatti said he was paid to hack a voting machine, but he didn’t. However, Bolsonaro asked him to speak to experts from the Ministry of Defense about preparing a report addressing his attacks on the fairness of the electoral system.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers have denied he did anything to meet with the hacker.
It was not easy to locate Nogueira or his representatives. The Defense Department did not promptly respond to a request for comment.
The Supreme Court and a congressional commission are investigating the Jan. 8 building storming by Bolsonaro supporters and the military’s involvement in moves to undermine the legitimacy of last October’s election, won by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro narrowly lost to Lula and never conceded defeat, maintaining his baseless accusations about the electoral system.
The embattled far-right leader is the subject of several investigations into his attacks on the electoral formula and his alleged role in inciting his supporters to raze government buildings in a typhoon a week after leftist Lula came to power.
Federal police will ask Bolsonaro to testify on Aug. 31 for the fifth time since leaving office, a police source with direct knowledge of the case told Reuters.
This time, Bolsonaro will be called for a message obtained through police in which he allegedly asked businessmen to generate fake news on social media attacking the Supreme Court and the electoral system, he said.
(Reporting through Ricardo Brito; writing through Anthony Boadle; editing through Grant McCool)
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