The Federal Police (PF) identified a collaboration between General Mário Fernandes and right-wing deputies who were part of the Joint Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPMI) on the 8th of January. The support consisted of strategic details to guide them in the debates and procedures of the government-dominated collegiate body. According to a report on the portal Metropolisesthis material was found on a hard drive seized during investigations.
Fernandes, former executive secretary of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, was arrested last Tuesday (19) as part of Operation Countercoup, conducted by the PF. The operation investigates his involvement in an alleged plan to assassinate President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), Vice President Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) and Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), at the end of 2022, as part of what would be an attempted coup d’état to keep President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in power.
The document, dated May 16, 2023, has just three pages and was prepared a few days before the installation of the CPMI. In it, the general presents strategic guidelines to parliamentarians, including “power ideas” such as: requests for impeachment of President Lula, on allegations of obstruction of investigations and omission in episodes of vandalism in Praça dos Três Poderes; defending the release of prisoners detained after the acts of January 8; and criticism of the arbitrariness of Minister Alexandre de Moraes, rapporteur of the investigations.
The general also suggests that the federal government’s leniency during the protests be denounced, even with prior knowledge of the risk of depredations. In relation to the PF, Fernandes points out abuses, with the fulfillment of illegal orders, including the arrest of 1,500 people, with violation of due legal process and the appropriate forum for suspects.
