In August 2025, the debate over foreign influence in Brazil’s 2022 presidential election reignited when Mike Benz, a former senior State Department official under Trump, testified before Brazil’s Congress. He did not mince words.
Benz said, “the CIA used a non-governmental organization to interfere in the elections in Brazil in 2022.” He claimed that “if USAID did not exist, Bolsonaro would still be president of Brazil, and Brazil would still have a free and open internet.”
Benz labeled USAID an “octopus of censorship,” alleging the U.S. agency “financed a network of NGOs, press agencies, and activist groups to suppress dissenting voices and push U.S.-aligned narratives in the Brazilian information ecosystem.”
He claimed that USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—which he called “essentially controlled by the Democratic Party”—were used as tools by the CIA in Brazil, building up “media and fact-checking infrastructure” just as the campaign heated up.
“It is a global system of U.S.-funded censorship—what happens here [Brazil] is happening in Ukraine, Africa, and elsewhere,” Benz asserted.
According to Benz, the real target was not just misinformation, but conservative politicians and supporters of then-president Jair Bolsonaro.
He linked funding to local enforcement, pointing to Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court and specifically Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who led a crackdown on conservative accounts and messages on platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram right before the vote.
USAID Under Fire
The hearings put real numbers on the table: “US$680,000 sent to Cáritas Brasileira and US$30,000 to Instituto Vero, sometimes through the International Center for Journalists.” Benz named specific groups—Sleeping Giants Brasil, Alma Preta, Agência Lupa, Instituto Vero—as alleged recipients.
However, these organizations, notably Agência Lupa, publicly denied any USAID funding, saying: “We have never received any resources from USAID, either directly or indirectly.”
On the American side, Benz noted, “USAID was accused of interfering in the most recent presidential elections in Brazil.”
He recalled that the Trump administration shuttered USAID’s Brazil operation amid those allegations and pointed to Elon Musk’s public criticism, with Musk labeling the agency “composed of radical left-wing lunatics.”
Facts confirm the Biden administration increased development funds to Brazil between 2019 and 2023. Brazilian reports remind that, before its closure, “USAID was the world’s largest single donor of humanitarian aid.”
Benz’s claims stirred political passions in Brazil. Politicians like Eduardo Bolsonaro called for deep investigations. At the same time, the evidence stops short of direct proof.
Benz himself admitted he had no “concrete proof” of the alleged impact, basing the case on patterns of funding, collaborations, and timing—not actual evidence of intent or coordination.
The same lack of proof surrounds claims by Argentina’s president Javier Milei, who said, also without evidence, that USAID funded election fraud in Brazil.