Brazil’s prosecutor’s office requests investigation closure against President Bolsonaro

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Thursday, February 17, Brazil’s Prosecutor’s Office asked the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to shelve an investigation against President Jair Bolsonaro for disclosing confidential reports of the Federal Police (PF) as part of his campaign to discredit the current electronic voting system, official sources reported.

The decision of the country’s prosecutor general, Augusto Aras, comes after the Supreme Federal Court gave fifteen days for the Prosecutor’s Office to comment on the case.

Aras considered that the investigation, initiated to verify an alleged invasion of systems and data banks of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), “was not protected under the secrecy” of Justice, so “its disclosure does not constitute a crime” and the president cannot be investigated.

“Based on this finding, Prosecutor General Augusto Aras requested the STF to archive” the investigation, the Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. Therefore, “there is no way to attribute to the investigated neither the practice of the crime of disclosure of secrecy nor the violation of functional secrecy”.

The investigation, of which Bolsonaro is the subject, is part of a process on so-called “fake news,” which included a fierce campaign he maintained against the electronic voting system that Brazil adopted in 1996.

In August last year, Bolsonaro disseminated, during a live broadcast and alongside Bolsonarist deputy Filipe Barros and commissioner Vitor Feitosa, some secret police documents about an attempted computer attack in the 2018 elections.

The leader of the Brazilian right-wing came to be intimidated by a Supreme Court magistrate to testify before the Police at the end of January but decided not to appear, which again increased tensions with the highest court in the country.

In this context, Aras pointed out that the Supreme Court has already stated that the accused’s appearance for questioning is “optional”, so Bolsonaro only expressed his “constitutional right”.

“The fact that the president of the Republic has not testified is the manifestation of his constitutional right to silence and to non-self-incrimination, which prevents the opening of an investigation against him in this case,” stressed the prosecutor general, quoted in the statement.

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Bolsonaro advocates the election on paper, which must be processed manually and is safe from hacking and cyber-attacks. However, he does not request a complete change in the voting system but that the electronic voting machines issue a paper receipt after registering the vote so that there is tangible proof in the case of a dispute.

A suggestion that the Chamber of Deputies has rejected.

On the one hand, Bolsonaro is accused of spreading “fake news” about the integrity and safety of the electronic voting system. On the other hand, they refuse to provide any means to verify the incorruptibility of these electronic systems.