By Harold Emert
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – One “aide” to former Rio de Janeiro Federal Deputy Jair Bolsonaro, Nelson Alves Rabello, received R$92,000 without ever having set foot in Congress, reports the Brazilian investigative reporting agency “Agência Pública”.
Dug up by the Brazilian media, the President’s family calls the reports “attempts to bring down the government of President Jair Bolsonaro”.
Rabello is one of the President’s longtime aides, registered as Bolsonaro’s Congressional assessor since 2005. He is a retired Lieutenant who served with ex-Captain Jair Bolsonaro in the Armed Forces, according to the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.
In May 2011, alleged ghost Rabello left Congress to work until May 2017 with Bolsonaro’s son Flavio, then a state assemblyman.
Rabello “returned” in June 2017 to work in Congress for then Federal deputy Jair Bolsonaro receiving R$92,200 for 19 months including a meal allowance of R$982, according to the Pública agency.
Sought out in vain for interviews by the Brazilian media, Rabello is currently listed as the aide of another Bolsonaro son, Rio city councilman Carlos Bolsonaro. He now earns R$6,600 a month, according to Pública.
Agência Pública also claims that including Rabello a total of six alleged “ghost” aides were on the then Congressman Bolsonaro’s payroll from 2015 to 2018.
They received salaries paid by taxpayers despite their alleged non-appearance at Congress.
“Besides these six ghosts, Pública had revealed that there were five other ghost aides who received public money without having ever set foot in Congress, making the total eleven ghost aides,” reports the non-profit Agency, founded in 2011 initially by women reporters.
Pública bases its information on data it obtained from Brazil’s law of access to information. Ex-aide Rabello is on the list of 95 persons and firms who had their banking information opened by investigators at Rio’s Public Ministry.
The Ministry was also investigating one of the President’ s sons, now senator Flavio Bolsonaro, and eight aides when Flavio was a state assemblyman.
Echoing U.S. President Donald Trump’s “this is a witch hunt against me without basis,” (in reference to the Mueller report), Flavio claims “these reports and revelations of secret information involved in the courts are attempts to bring down the government of Jair Bolsonaro.”