Rendered ineligible by the TSE, Bolsonaro may face even more defeats in the criminal sphere
247 - Jair Bolsonaro (PL) will still have to face the likely consequences of criminal investigations after suffering a setback at the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), according to Folha de S. Paulo. Last Friday (30), the TSE convicted Bolsonaro of abuse of political power and misuse of communication channels, making him ineligible for eight years.Beyond this most recent defeat, Bolsonaro is being investigated on several other fronts, primarily related to January 8th, and others consolidated in the investigation of digital militias."The votes of some justices in the TSE, including the rapporteur Benedito Gonçalves and Alexandre de Moraes, rapporteur of the criminal investigations, indicate that Bolsonaro is seen as a member of the digital militia," the report states.Gonçalves signaled in his vote that the understanding is that there is a direct relationship between Bolsonaro's discourse against the voting machines before the election and the subsequent attacks.The draft of the coup found in the home of former minister Anderson Torres, which aimed to establish a state of defense of the TSE, is the script of the Bolsonarist coup, according to Gonçalves. "It is evident that the draft materialized, in formally technical text, an exit strategy in case there were indications of electoral fraud in 2022. This in a context where the hypothesis of fraud was treated as equivalent to the defeat of the presidential re-election candidate," the minister said.Moraes mentioned the 'digital militias' when stating that all those who have produced and disseminated disinformation are part of this group. The judge emphasized the need to punish them all. "Disinformation produced and disseminated by true digital militias around the world. If this authoritarian bias and extremism are what we want for our democracy, let us reaffirm our faith in our democracy and the rule of law. We will not allow digital militias to once again destabilize elections and democratic institutions."In a vote accepting the charges against the Bolsonarist terrorists of January 8th, Moraes had already pointed to the connection between this case and the ongoing investigations against Bolsonaro, indicating that he sees the former president as the mastermind behind the attack earlier in the year.The delegate in charge of the case involving the cell phone of Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, former aide-de-camp of Bolsonaro, has also expressed a similar understanding regarding the coup script. The conversations found on the device "revealed the process of materialization in the real world of the objectives of the association currently under investigation, transcending its actions beyond the virtual sphere. The digital militia echoed and amplified through multiple channels the idea that the presidential elections were fraudulent", he said.