He heard “no” from Army and Air Force commanders more than once. It shows that the then president sought the pair’s adhesion four times. At one point, he tried to circumvent the military leaders to move forward with the plot.
Brigadier Baptista Júnior said that, until November 14, 2022, the then president seemed “resigned to the results of the elections”. On that date, Bolsonaro summoned the commanders to present the report contracted by him to request the annulment of the elections.
The first “no” was heard there. The head of the Air Force reported having told Bolsonaro that the study “had no technical basis”. Baptista Júnior and General Freire Gomes, commander of the Army, stated that the then president knew that the Ministry of Defense’s audit had found no signs of fraud at the polls.
Even though he knew that the military would not endorse the thesis of a stolen election, Bolsonaro did not give up. Freire Gomes and Baptista Júnior reported at least two meetings at Palácio da Alvorada, on December 7 and on an unspecified date, in which the captain presented. The head of the Army said that, in one of the meetings, he threatened to arrest Bolsonaro if he went ahead.
There was a new attempt on December 14th. The commanders were called by the Minister of Defense to analyze a new version of the decree, “cleared” by Bolsonaro days before. The two chiefs told the PF that they refused to evaluate the text.
Along the way, Bolsonaro also tested the chances of betrayal inside the barracks. On December 9, he called the Army Land Operations commander and asked if he would put the troops out on the street. General Estevam Theophilo agreed, according to the PF.
In one of the many emblematic conversations discovered by the PF, a retired colonel complained, almost at the end of December, about the commanders’ resistance to the coup and suggested the organization of “a petit comité meeting”. “These people above the ethics line cannot be at this meeting. It has to be the rats”, he states.
The rataria was always inside the Palácio da Alvorada and in command posts: from Theophilo, the military who devised a terrorist plan and the Navy commander (who offered support for the coup) to the President of the Republic and generals Braga Netto and Augusto Heleno .
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