Here’s an inter­est­ing fol­lowup sto­ry to the reports of Ger­man duchess/AfD Deputy Direc­tor Beat­rix von Storch trav­el­ing to Brazil to announce the for­ma­tion of a Con­ser­v­a­tive Inter­na­tion­al with Brazil’s Jair Bol­sonaro:
First, it turns out that the announce­ment of the new Con­ser­v­a­tive Inter­na­tion­al took place not long before the sec­ond “CPAC Brazil Con­fer­ence” con­fer­ence that just hap­pened last week­end. It was the sec­ond such CPAC Brasil con­fer­ence, the first tak­ing place in 2019. So an actu­al inter­na­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive con­fer­ence took place in Brazil short­ly after the announce­ment of a Con­ser­v­a­tive Inter­na­tion­al there, rais­ing the ques­tion of whether or not Storch or oth­er Ger­man aris­to­crats attend­ed the con­fer­ence. Either way, it’s hard not to assume the two events are high­ly relat­ed. Espe­cial­ly in light of Jair Bol­sonaro’s son Eduar­do attend­ing the US CPAC con­fer­ence in August.

And we get to a poten­tial­ly omi­nous twist in this sto­ry: For­mer Trump cam­paign offi­cial Jason Miller was inter­viewed by Brazil­ian author­i­ties for rough­ly three hours at a air­port in Brazil’s capi­tol. It does­n’t sound like Miller was for­mal­ly arrest­ed. Miller released the state­ment, “We were not accused of any wrong­do­ing, and told only that they ‘want­ed to talk,’. We informed them that we had noth­ing to say and were even­tu­al­ly released to fly back to the Unit­ed States.” So Miller was detained by Brazil­ian author­i­ties who ‘want­ed to talk’, told them he did­n’t want to talk, and was released. Adding to the intrigue are recent reports of Brazil­ian pros­e­cu­tors show­ing an inter­est in Eduar­do giv­en his plans to run for office in 2022 and ties to Steve Ban­non.

It’s notable that Miller’s state­ment on the detain­ment was actu­al­ly released by GETTR, the new MAGA cen­sure-proof social media plat­form financed by Guo Wen­gui. Miller is the CEO of GETTR.

What might these Brazil­ian author­i­ties have been inter­est­ed in talk­ing about? Well, that returns to the dis­turb­ing sto­ry of the oth­er US con­ser­v­a­tive con­fer­ence Eduar­do attend­ed last month: Mike Lin­del­l’s “Cyber-sym­po­sium”, where Lin­dell was going to show the world evi­dence the 2020 elec­tion was stolen from Don­ald Trump by Chi­nese hack­ers. As we saw, Eduar­do attend­ed with the goal of mak­ing the upcom­ing Brazil­ian elec­tions the next glob­al MAGA bat­tle­ground, with Steve Ban­non declar­ing that “Bol­sonaro will win unless it’s stolen by, guess what, the machines.” To the ground­work is already being laid by this inter­na­tion­al right-wing net­work to pre­emp­tive­ly declare the Brazil­ian elec­tion stolen.

Flash for­ward to this week, and we find that Bol­sonaro’s gov­ern­ment held a “Stop the Steal” ral­ly that many feared would result in a Jan­u­ary 6‑style insur­rec­tion. That did­n’t hap­pen but the ral­ly was nonethe­less a giant warn­ing about the grow­ing dan­ger of exact­ly that out­come should Bol­sonaro lose. Don’t for­get that this “Stop the Steal” ral­ly is tak­ing place before the actu­al vote. That’s how strong­ly they’re sig­nal­ing this is the plan.

So why is Bol­sonaro’s cam­paign already hold­ing “Stop the Steal” ral­lies before a sin­gle vote has been cast? Because polls show Bol­sonaro’s approval rat­ings hov­er­ing some­where in the low 20s. He’s lost every­one but the fas­cist core. But he’s still got that core and appar­ent­ly mak­ing the bet that he can cling to pow­er one way or anoth­er by har­ness­ing that 20 per­cent’s mil­i­tan­cy.

That’s all part of the con­text of the CPAC Brazil con­fer­ence and the mys­te­ri­ous inter­view of Jason Miller. Brazil’s bureau­cra­cy appears to be prepar­ing to deal with the sce­nario of Bol­sonaro going full fas­cist at the same time Bol­sonaro’s team is prepar­ing to both steal the elec­tion and ward off gov­ern­ment inves­ti­ga­tors. That pow­der keg of a sit­u­a­tion is the cri­sis from which this new Fas­cist Inter­na­tion­al is emerg­ing.

Ok, first, here’s a TPM piece on Jason Miller’s inter­view at the air­port. A mys­te­ri­ous three hour inter­view where Miller appar­ent­ly just told them he had noth­ing to share and that was it:

Talk­ing Points Memo

Brazil­ian Author­i­ties Ques­tion Jason Miller After CPAC Event In Brasil­ia

By Josh Koven­sky
Sep­tem­ber 7, 2021 1:00 p.m.

Trump advis­er Jason Miller claims he was ques­tioned by author­i­ties Tues­day as he pre­pared to board a flight to leave Brazil’s capi­tol.

Miller said that he has attend­ed the “CPAC Brasil Con­fer­ence” in Brasil­ia before author­i­ties ques­tioned him for three hours, accord­ing to a state­ment obtained by TPM. CPAC Brazil bills itself as “The biggest con­ser­v­a­tive event in the world in Brazil.”

“We were not accused of any wrong­do­ing, and told only that they ‘want­ed to talk,’” the state­ment reads. “We informed them that we had noth­ing to say and were even­tu­al­ly released to fly back to the Unit­ed States.”

It’s not clear which author­i­ties con­duct­ed the ques­tion­ing or what the sub­ject of the inves­ti­ga­tion was.

GETTR, the right-wing social net­work which, per Miller, received fund­ing from Chi­nese Bil­lion­aire Guo Wengui’s fam­i­ly foun­da­tion, issued the state­ment on Miller’s behalf. The CPAC Brasil 2021 web­site lists GETTR and Par­ler, anoth­er right-wing social net­work, as spon­sors of the event.

CPAC Brasil said on a web­site for the event that Miller was set to speak at the gath­er­ing, and list­ed oth­er MAGA nota­bles like Don­ald Trump Jr. and Rep. Mark E. Green (R‑TN) as attend­ing.

Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Jair Bol­sonaro, a close ally of for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump who was plan­ning to hold a Stop the Steal-style ral­ly on Tues­day, the country’s inde­pen­dence day, faces re-elec­tion in Octo­ber 2022. That’s report­ed­ly led to Bol­sonaro offi­cials seek­ing help from Trump­world in their effort to stay in pow­er.

Bolsonaro’s son Eduar­do trav­eled to the Unit­ed States last month, where he met with Trump and received a signed MAGA hat from the for­mer pres­i­dent.

...

Reports from Brazil­ian media have sug­gest­ed that pros­e­cu­tors in the coun­try have eyed the younger Bolsonaro’s plan­ning for the 2022 elec­tion in the coun­try, includ­ing his ties to for­mer Trump cam­paign chair Steve Ban­non.

There’s noth­ing to sug­gest that the report­ed Bol­sonaro inves­ti­ga­tion is tied to Miller’s stay in Brasil­ia.

———-

“Brazil­ian Author­i­ties Ques­tion Jason Miller After CPAC Event In Brasil­ia” by Josh Koven­sky; Talk­ing Points Memo; 09/07/2021

““We were not accused of any wrong­do­ing, and told only that they ‘want­ed to talk,’” the state­ment reads. “We informed them that we had noth­ing to say and were even­tu­al­ly released to fly back to the Unit­ed States.””

They just “want­ed to talk”. For sev­er­al hours. And Miller told them he had noth­ing to talk about and that was it. Yeah, it’s omi­nous.

Keep in mind Miller’s posi­tion as CEO of GETTR, one of the ‘cen­sor­ship proof’ social media plat­forms built in recent years tar­get­ing con­ser­v­a­tive audi­ences. And that means GETTR is almost cer­tain­ly a repos­i­to­ry of the worst kind of far right con­tent. Includ­ing talk of polit­i­cal vio­lence. In oth­er words, if Miller is the CEO of GETTR, that makes him the CEO of one of the plat­forms most like­ly to be used by the Brazil­ian far right for qui­et­ly orches­trat­ing some sort orga­nized polit­i­cal vio­lence. Was that part of what they want­ed to talk about with Miller? GETTR isn’t say­ing. But it’s hard to imag­ine these inves­ti­ga­tors weren’t well aware of the “Stop the Steal” ral­ly Bol­sonaro had planned for Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 7, Brazil’s Inde­pen­dence Day:

...
GETTR, the right-wing social net­work which, per Miller, received fund­ing from Chi­nese Bil­lion­aire Guo Wengui’s fam­i­ly foun­da­tion, issued the state­ment on Miller’s behalf. The CPAC Brasil 2021 web­site lists GETTR and Par­ler, anoth­er right-wing social net­work, as spon­sors of the event.

...

Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Jair Bol­sonaro, a close ally of for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump who was plan­ning to hold a Stop the Steal-style ral­ly on Tues­day, the country’s inde­pen­dence day, faces re-elec­tion in Octo­ber 2022. That’s report­ed­ly led to Bol­sonaro offi­cials seek­ing help from Trump­world in their effort to stay in pow­er.

...

Reports from Brazil­ian media have sug­gest­ed that pros­e­cu­tors in the coun­try have eyed the younger Bolsonaro’s plan­ning for the 2022 elec­tion in the coun­try, includ­ing his ties to for­mer Trump cam­paign chair Steve Ban­non.
...

And now here’s a Bloomberg report on Jair Bol­sonaro prep­ping his fol­low­ers for the Sept 7, “Stop the Steal” ral­ly planned for Brazil’s Inde­pen­dence Day. As the arti­cle notes, this came days after Bol­sonaro said the upcom­ing elec­tion will either result in his vic­to­ry, his arrest or his death. So the meta mes­sage to Bol­sonaro’s sup­port­ers going into the upcom­ing elec­tion is this will be a fight to the death:

Bloomberg

Brazil on Edge as Bol­sonaro Tells His Base to Take to the Streets

With his pop­u­lar­i­ty wan­ing, the president’s attempt to politi­cize Inde­pen­dence Day is fan­ning fears of con­fronta­tion.

By Daniel Car­val­ho and Simone Preissler Igle­sias
Sep­tem­ber 6, 2021, 3:00 AM CDT

Pres­i­dent Jair Bol­sonaro has urged Brazil­ians to come out in force on Tues­day to show their sup­port for his gov­ern­ment. It’s shap­ing up to be an all-or-noth­ing gauge of his chances of re-elec­tion that has Brazil brac­ing for poten­tial clash­es.

Brazil’s bank­ing and indus­try groups have issued calls for calm, as Supreme Court Jus­tice Ricar­do Lewandows­ki wrote a news­pa­per arti­cle point­ing out that any action against the con­sti­tu­tion­al order by armed groups, civil­ian or mil­i­tary, con­sti­tutes a crime. The Sen­ate pres­i­dent can­celed his atten­dance at an event in Aus­tria to mon­i­tor the demon­stra­tions.

Bol­sonaro sees Sept. 7 — Brazil’s Inde­pen­dence Day — as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to ral­ly his base and demon­strate that he retains the back­ing of large num­bers of vot­ers, accord­ing to four peo­ple who have access to the pres­i­dent and his sons. It’s a chance to show that he’s not alone in tack­ling the country’s great­est chal­lenges, the peo­ple said.

One of Bolsonaro’s fam­i­ly aides says the president’s goal is to pre­vent the fur­ther ero­sion of his base. Even as his approval rat­ing hit a low of 20%, the Bol­sonaro fam­i­ly believes he still has the core sup­port that would allow him to make it through to a runoff against Luiz Ina­cio Lula da Sil­va, the for­mer pres­i­dent who leads the polls for the 2022 bal­lot.

“Sept. 7 will be a mile­stone in the renew­al of hope in Brazil because Bol­sonaro is loved, fol­lowed and sup­port­ed by the pop­u­la­tion,” Labor Min­is­ter Onyx Loren­zoni, one of the cab­i­net mem­bers clos­est to the pres­i­dent, said in an inter­view. “There is no pres­i­dent in the world nowa­days more pop­u­lar than him.”

Bol­sonaro may be “unbreak­able,” as Loren­zoni assert­ed, but his gam­ble could still back­fire: a low turnout would be an embar­rass­ment for the pres­i­dent at a time when his trou­bles have been mul­ti­ply­ing. Infla­tion is soar­ing, sup­port from the busi­ness and agribusi­ness lob­bies is flag­ging, a water cri­sis has raised Brazil­ians’ ener­gy bills, gas prices are through the roof, and a probe into his errat­ic han­dling of the pan­dem­ic con­tin­ues to uncov­er nuggets of scan­dal.

Against such a tur­bu­lent back­ground, Bol­sonaro has used insin­u­a­tions of demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­rup­tion to inflame his loy­al­ists and attack the country’s insti­tu­tions, espe­cial­ly the Supreme Court. Insin­u­a­tions of doubt over the impar­tial­i­ty of the elec­toral sys­tem by which he won office have become one of the ral­ly­ing points for Tuesday’s demon­stra­tions.

These efforts have height­ened the appre­hen­sion of local polit­i­cal author­i­ties across the coun­try, who fear that Latin America’s largest econ­o­my could become a stage for vio­lent con­fronta­tion.

The president’s ambiva­lent rhetoric has done noth­ing to dis­pel such con­cerns. Last week he said that the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion will either result in his vic­to­ry, his arrest or his death.

“No one need fear on Sept. 7,” he said Thurs­day dur­ing a speech at the pres­i­den­tial palace, adding that force can­not be used to whip up aggres­sion. Then on Fri­day, he said that the mes­sage of those on the streets will serve as an “an ulti­ma­tum” to two Supreme Court jus­tices whom he has sin­gled out for crit­i­cism.

“Under­stand that you two are on the wrong path,” he said, with­out nam­ing the jus­tices. If some­one wants to play out­side the Con­sti­tu­tion, he added, “we will show that we can play too.”

...

Law­mak­ers, jus­tices and even mem­bers of his cab­i­net say they will be watch­ing Bol­sonaro to see how far he is will­ing to go to esca­late the polit­i­cal cri­sis in the coun­try, with Tuesday’s protests an impor­tant indi­ca­tor of sen­ti­ment.

“Demon­stra­tions are a spasm of a des­per­ate, unpop­u­lar, incom­pe­tent and cor­nered gov­ern­ment,” said Alessan­dro Molon, the oppo­si­tion leader in the low­er house. While refer­ring to Bolsonaro’s call to take to the streets as “one more step of an author­i­tar­i­an esca­la­tion,” he said that unlike in 1964 when the mil­i­tary took con­trol, “today there is no sup­port for a coup d’etat in Brazil.”

Bol­sonaro will host a pared-down cer­e­mo­ny first thing in Brasil­ia in front of the presidency’s offi­cial res­i­dence. The tra­di­tion­al mil­i­tary parade has been sus­pend­ed due to the pan­dem­ic.

The pres­i­dent has said that he will then par­tic­i­pate in a demon­stra­tion in the cap­i­tal. Local gov­ern­ment said it expect­ed 16 sep­a­rate groups in the city cen­ter — 13 in favor of the pres­i­dent and 3 against — increas­ing the risk of con­fronta­tion. Some 5,000 police offi­cers will be present.

Lat­er in the day, Bol­sonaro will go to Sao Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, for anoth­er protest.

The Supreme Court “remains atten­tive and vig­i­lant on Sept. 7 in favor of Brazil’s democ­ra­cy,” Chief Jus­tice Luiz Fux said in a speech last week.

————

“Brazil on Edge as Bol­sonaro Tells His Base to Take to the Streets” by Daniel Car­val­ho and Simone Preissler Igle­sias; Bloomberg; 09/06/2021

“Bol­sonaro sees Sept. 7 — Brazil’s Inde­pen­dence Day — as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to ral­ly his base and demon­strate that he retains the back­ing of large num­bers of vot­ers, accord­ing to four peo­ple who have access to the pres­i­dent and his sons. It’s a chance to show that he’s not alone in tack­ling the country’s great­est chal­lenges, the peo­ple said.”

A demon­stra­tion of strength. That’s how Jair Bol­sonaro was fram­ing the plan­ning Inde­pen­dence Day ral­lies. A giant sign of strength in the face of polls show­ing him fetch­ing around 20 per­cent of the elec­torate’s sup­port. Lever­ag­ing the inten­si­ty of that 20 per­cent is Bol­sonaro’s strat­e­gy. A strat­e­gy that can’t real­ly work through nor­mal elec­toral dynam­ics. Hence the pre­emp­tive claims of vot­er fraud. In the face of a like­ly elec­toral loss, Bol­sonaro is prep­ping his base to with through oth­er means. Any means nec­es­sary:

...
One of Bolsonaro’s fam­i­ly aides says the president’s goal is to pre­vent the fur­ther ero­sion of his base. Even as his approval rat­ing hit a low of 20%, the Bol­sonaro fam­i­ly believes he still has the core sup­port that would allow him to make it through to a runoff against Luiz Ina­cio Lula da Sil­va, the for­mer pres­i­dent who leads the polls for the 2022 bal­lot.

...

Against such a tur­bu­lent back­ground, Bol­sonaro has used insin­u­a­tions of demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­rup­tion to inflame his loy­al­ists and attack the country’s insti­tu­tions, espe­cial­ly the Supreme Court. Insin­u­a­tions of doubt over the impar­tial­i­ty of the elec­toral sys­tem by which he won office have become one of the ral­ly­ing points for Tuesday’s demon­stra­tions.

...

The president’s ambiva­lent rhetoric has done noth­ing to dis­pel such con­cerns. Last week he said that the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion will either result in his vic­to­ry, his arrest or his death.

“No one need fear on Sept. 7,” he said Thurs­day dur­ing a speech at the pres­i­den­tial palace, adding that force can­not be used to whip up aggres­sion. Then on Fri­day, he said that the mes­sage of those on the streets will serve as an “an ulti­ma­tum” to two Supreme Court jus­tices whom he has sin­gled out for crit­i­cism.

“Under­stand that you two are on the wrong path,” he said, with­out nam­ing the jus­tices. If some­one wants to play out­side the Con­sti­tu­tion, he added, “we will show that we can play too.”
...

He may not have the sup­port of 80 per­cent of the Brazil­ian elec­torate. But he’s got a very fer­vent 20 per­cent back­ing him up. Along with Steve Ban­non, MAGA land, Ger­man monar­chists, and the Fas­cist Inter­na­tion­al. So while it may not be look­ing great for Bol­sonaro in the polls, when you count all the fas­cists around the world inter­est­ed in this elec­tion, he’s real­ly does have quite a bit of sup­port. The kind of sup­port that can more than make up for a lack of sup­port from the actu­al vot­ers.

Are we look­ing at the seeds of a Brazil­ian ‘Jan 6’ kind of sit­u­a­tion? That’s the ques­tion still loom­ing over Brazil fol­low­ing Jair Bol­sonaro’s nar­row loss to Luiz Iná­cio Lula da Sil­va in Sun­day’s elec­tion. A loom­ing ques­tion punc­tu­at­ed by Bol­sonaro’s com­plete silence on Mon­day and road-block protests by his sup­port­ers across the coun­try, lead­ing many to spec­u­late a coup attempt was in the works. A coup that, as we’re going to see, Bol­sonaro back­ers are already call­ing for, includ­ing back­ers in the US. Steve Ban­non and Ali Alexan­der — two of the cen­tral fig­ures in the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion plot — are already open­ly call­ing for Bol­sonaro to refuse to con­cede. Beyond that, Ban­non is already alleg­ing that Joe Biden is involved in car­ry­ing out a coup against Bol­sonaro and using that as a call for con­ser­v­a­tives to vote in the US’s mid-term elec­tions next week.

Will Ban­non and Alexan­der get their Brazil­ian coup? Maybe, but maybe not. That’s the update we got fol­low­ing the break­ing of Bol­sonaro’s silence on Tues­day. While he did not con­cede in his speech, he also did­n’t open­ly call for a coup. In addi­tion, his chief of staff has told reporters that Bol­sonaro is plan­ning on going through with the trans­fer of pow­er. Over­all, the signs are point­ing against a coup.

But Ban­non and Alexan­der should­n’t aban­don all hope. Because it also sounds like Bol­sonaro’s will­ing­ness to accept the trans­fer of pow­er comes with a catch: an agree­ment to not pros­e­cute him or his fam­i­ly. Many are spec­u­lat­ing that such a deal is being worked out right now. Keep in mind the con­text. Lulu’s pres­i­den­tial come­back was pre­ced­ed by the years he just spent in prison on cor­rup­tion charges that sure look like they were a right-wing witch-hunt.

So we appear to have a par­tial answer as to whether or not Jair Bol­sonaro is going to agree to accept the elec­tion results: Yes he will accept the elec­tion results, but only if he gets his get-out-of-jail-free card:

The Guardian

Bol­sonaro breaks elec­tion silence but refus­es to recog­nise Lula’s vic­to­ry

Defeat­ed pres­i­dent speaks after two days but fails to con­grat­u­late oppo­nent and does not explic­it­ly say he respects result

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro and Andrew Down­ie in São Paulo
Tue 1 Nov 2022 17.20 EDT
First pub­lished on Tue 1 Nov 2022 16.07 EDT

Brazil’s far-right pres­i­dent Jair Bol­sonaro has bro­ken his almost two-day silence over his defeat in Sunday’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion – but refused to con­grat­u­late or rec­og­nize the vic­to­ry of his rival Luiz Iná­cio Lula da Sil­va.

Bol­sonaro lost what was wide­ly seen as Brazil’s most impor­tant elec­tion in decades by a mar­gin of 2.1m votes – 50.9% to 49.1% — and dozens of world lead­ers swift­ly rec­og­nized Lula’s vic­to­ry.

But Bol­sonaro said noth­ing, with local media reports sug­gest­ing the errat­ic right-wing pop­ulist was holed up in his pres­i­den­tial res­i­dence con­sumed by anger, despon­den­cy and dis­be­lief.

In a brief appear­ance on Tues­day after­noon Bol­sonaro at last broke his silence, amid grow­ing pub­lic indig­na­tion at his unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic stance.

“Our dreams are more alive than ever,” the 67-year-old told jour­nal­ists who had been sum­moned to the Alvo­ra­da palace in the cap­i­tal Brasília.

How­ev­er, Bol­sonaro, who is the first serv­ing pres­i­dent to lose a re-elec­tion bid in Brazil­ian his­to­ry, made no men­tion of the election’s win­ner and did not say whether he accept­ed the result.

He thanked the 58 mil­lion vot­ers who had backed his failed cam­paign but did not explic­it­ly say he would respect Lula’s win or allude to the 60 mil­lion peo­ple who vot­ed for his oppo­nent.

“As pres­i­dent and as a cit­i­zen I will con­tin­ue to fol­low all the com­mand­ments of our con­sti­tu­tion,” Bol­sonaro said ambigu­ous­ly.

Bol­sonaro also allud­ed to base­less claims that Sunday’s elec­tion had not been fair. He said the post-elec­tion protests being staged by hard­core sup­port­ers – includ­ing using trucks and tires to block key high­ways – were the fruit of “indig­na­tion and a feel­ing of injus­tice about how the elec­toral process played out”.

...

After Bol­sonaro had deliv­ered his mes­sage, his chief of staff Ciro Nogueira indi­cat­ed that his admin­is­tra­tion would not con­test the elec­tion result.

“Pres­i­dent Jair Bol­sonaro … has autho­rized me that when pro­voked accord­ing to the law we will begin the tran­si­tion process,” he said.

The polit­i­cal ana­lyst Thomas Trau­mann said Nogueira’s remarks rep­re­sent­ed a for­mal recog­ni­tion that Bol­sonaro had lost the elec­tion and that there would be a change of pow­er at the end of the year.

The supreme court echoed that inter­pre­ta­tion in a state­ment which said that by green-light­ing the tran­si­tion process, Bol­sonaro had “rec­og­nized the final result of the elec­tions”.

Trau­mann believed Bolsonaro’s refusal to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly con­cede and his sig­nal to pro­test­ers reflect­ed a behind-the-scenes effort to secure some kind of infor­mal amnesty that would shield him from pros­e­cu­tion once he steps down and los­es pres­i­den­tial immu­ni­ty.

Observers believe that after leav­ing pow­er Bol­sonaro could find him­self exposed to a mul­ti­tude of pos­si­ble inves­ti­ga­tions and charges relat­ing to fake news, anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic behav­iour, alleged cor­rup­tion and his han­dling of a Covid pan­dem­ic which killed near­ly 700,000 Brazil­ians.

“He is clear­ly afraid of prison … so what he’s try­ing to do is nego­ti­ate with the only card he has left, which is big street protests,” Trau­mann said.

On Tues­day night Bol­sonaro was report­ed­ly locked in talks with at least six mem­bers of the supreme court as part of that sup­posed nego­ti­a­tion. One promi­nent polit­i­cal jour­nal­ist, Guil­herme Ama­do, said the pres­i­dent planned to “request that nei­ther he nor his fam­i­ly be per­se­cut­ed” once he stepped down.

On Tues­day morn­ing the supreme court ruled that the fed­er­al high­way police should “imme­di­ate­ly take all mea­sures” to clear the roads Bol­sonaro sup­port­ers had ille­gal­ly blocked.

...

———–

“Bol­sonaro breaks elec­tion silence but refus­es to recog­nise Lula’s vic­to­ry” by Tom Phillips and Andrew Down­ie; The Guardian; 11/01/2022

“After Bol­sonaro had deliv­ered his mes­sage, his chief of staff Ciro Nogueira indi­cat­ed that his admin­is­tra­tion would not con­test the elec­tion result.”

Well, Jair Bol­sonaro may not have explic­it­ly said it him­self, but it does sound like he’s con­ced­ing. At least that’s what we have to hope is the case based on the words from Bol­sonaro’s chief of staff. Very very grudg­ing­ly con­ced­ing, but con­ced­ing nonethe­less. It’s kind of the best we could hope for giv­en all the signs point­ing towards anoth­er far right ‘stolen elec­tion’ fias­co:

...
Bol­sonaro lost what was wide­ly seen as Brazil’s most impor­tant elec­tion in decades by a mar­gin of 2.1m votes – 50.9% to 49.1% — and dozens of world lead­ers swift­ly rec­og­nized Lula’s vic­to­ry.

But Bol­sonaro said noth­ing, with local media reports sug­gest­ing the errat­ic right-wing pop­ulist was holed up in his pres­i­den­tial res­i­dence con­sumed by anger, despon­den­cy and dis­be­lief.

In a brief appear­ance on Tues­day after­noon Bol­sonaro at last broke his silence, amid grow­ing pub­lic indig­na­tion at his unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic stance.

“Our dreams are more alive than ever,” the 67-year-old told jour­nal­ists who had been sum­moned to the Alvo­ra­da palace in the cap­i­tal Brasília.

How­ev­er, Bol­sonaro, who is the first serv­ing pres­i­dent to lose a re-elec­tion bid in Brazil­ian his­to­ry, made no men­tion of the election’s win­ner and did not say whether he accept­ed the result.

He thanked the 58 mil­lion vot­ers who had backed his failed cam­paign but did not explic­it­ly say he would respect Lula’s win or allude to the 60 mil­lion peo­ple who vot­ed for his oppo­nent.

“As pres­i­dent and as a cit­i­zen I will con­tin­ue to fol­low all the com­mand­ments of our con­sti­tu­tion,” Bol­sonaro said ambigu­ous­ly.

Bol­sonaro also allud­ed to base­less claims that Sunday’s elec­tion had not been fair. He said the post-elec­tion protests being staged by hard­core sup­port­ers – includ­ing using trucks and tires to block key high­ways – were the fruit of “indig­na­tion and a feel­ing of injus­tice about how the elec­toral process played out”.
...

But also note the appar­ent aster­isk in Bol­sonaro’s con­ces­sion: in exchange for con­ced­ing, Bol­sonaro wants no pros­e­cu­tions for him and his fam­i­ly. Behind-the-scenes nego­ti­a­tions are hap­pen­ing. What hap­pens if a non-pros­e­cu­tion agree­ment can’t be reached? And what are the long-term impli­ca­tions for Brazil’s democ­ra­cy if such a law­less agree­ment is actu­al­ly reached? Don’t for­get that Lula spent years in prison on basi­cal­ly trumped up cor­rup­tion charges many con­sid­ered a trav­es­ty of jus­tice. It would be rather remark­able if the gross­ly cor­rupt Bol­sonaro was able to demand no inves­ti­ga­tions as a price for not leav­ing office:

...
The polit­i­cal ana­lyst Thomas Trau­mann said Nogueira’s remarks rep­re­sent­ed a for­mal recog­ni­tion that Bol­sonaro had lost the elec­tion and that there would be a change of pow­er at the end of the year.

The supreme court echoed that inter­pre­ta­tion in a state­ment which said that by green-light­ing the tran­si­tion process, Bol­sonaro had “rec­og­nized the final result of the elec­tions”.

Trau­mann believed Bolsonaro’s refusal to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly con­cede and his sig­nal to pro­test­ers reflect­ed a behind-the-scenes effort to secure some kind of infor­mal amnesty that would shield him from pros­e­cu­tion once he steps down and los­es pres­i­den­tial immu­ni­ty.

Observers believe that after leav­ing pow­er Bol­sonaro could find him­self exposed to a mul­ti­tude of pos­si­ble inves­ti­ga­tions and charges relat­ing to fake news, anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic behav­iour, alleged cor­rup­tion and his han­dling of a Covid pan­dem­ic which killed near­ly 700,000 Brazil­ians.

“He is clear­ly afraid of prison … so what he’s try­ing to do is nego­ti­ate with the only card he has left, which is big street protests,” Trau­mann said.

On Tues­day night Bol­sonaro was report­ed­ly locked in talks with at least six mem­bers of the supreme court as part of that sup­posed nego­ti­a­tion. One promi­nent polit­i­cal jour­nal­ist, Guil­herme Ama­do, said the pres­i­dent planned to “request that nei­ther he nor his fam­i­ly be per­se­cut­ed” once he stepped down.
...

We’ll pre­sum­ably get some sort clar­i­ty on the sit­u­a­tion rel­a­tive­ly soon. Either Bol­sonaro gets his back-room deal and allows the tran­si­tion to con­tin­ue, or the nego­ti­a­tions break down and we sud­den­ly dis­cov­er a new refusal to leave office.

And as the fol­low­ing Moth­er Jones piece points out, should Bol­sonaro go down the path of refus­ing to leave office he’s going to have plen­ty of allies in the US. Allies with coup-attempt expe­ri­ence of their own: Steve Ban­non and Ali Alexan­der — two key orga­niz­ers of the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion and both mem­bers of the pow­er­ful Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy — have already both come out demand­ing that Bol­sonaro refuse to con­cede. It’s a reminder that the biggest back­ers for a Bol­sonaro coup attempt are going to be the Fas­cist Inter­na­tion­al. Espe­cial­ly the Trump wing of the Fas­cist Inter­na­tion­al, who are already eager­ly plan­ning ‘Coup Attempt II’ for 2024:

Moth­er Jones

Trump’s Big Liars Urge Brazil’s Bol­sonaro to Refuse to Con­cede
“Take to the streets, broth­ers of Brazil!”

Dan Fried­man
10/31/2022

Top pur­vey­ors of for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s elec­tion fraud lies are now call­ing for Brazil’s far-right Pres­i­dent Jair Bol­sonaro to fol­low Trump’s lead and refuse to admit defeat.

“Bol­sonaro can’t con­cede,” Trump advis­er Steve Ban­non, who in 2020 helped Trump car­ry out a plan to con­vince back­ers that he had not lost, said on Sun­day. Ban­non spoke short­ly after Brazil’s elec­toral author­i­ty announced that vot­ers had nar­row­ly elect­ed left­ist for­mer Pres­i­dent Luiz Iná­cio Lula da Sil­va, known as Lula, oust­ing Bol­sonaro after one term.

A pop­ulist some­times called the “Trump of the Trop­ics,” Bol­sonaro offered Trump his endorse­ment in 2020 and received Trump’s sup­port this year. Like Trump in 2020, the Brazil­ian pres­i­dent has worked to lay the ground­work for con­test­ing an elec­tion defeat by ques­tion­ing the valid­i­ty of vot­ing machines in Brazil, which has a ful­ly elec­tron­ic vot­ing sys­tem. He has insist­ed that he could only lose through fraud and sug­gest­ed he would not con­cede, omi­nous­ly declar­ing in August: “I have three alter­na­tives for my future: being arrest­ed, killed, or vic­to­ry.”

Bol­sonaro remained silent on Monday—he is expect­ed to address his nation on Tues­day. But his Amer­i­can fans quick­ly raced ahead of him. “Take to the streets, broth­ers of Brazil!” Ali Alexan­der, a far-right activist who orga­nized “Stop the Steal” events after Trump’s defeat, includ­ing one on Jan­u­ary 6, wrote on Trump’s social media app, Truth Social. “Mil­i­tary stand­by. Peace­ful­ly and patri­ot­i­cal­ly!”

Ban­non on Mon­day pep­pered his account on anoth­er right lean­ing social media app, Get­tr, with vague claims that anom­alies in vot­ing pat­terns sug­gest­ed Brazil’s elec­tion “was rigged and stolen.”

Both men latched onto a For­eign Pol­i­cy arti­cle describ­ing diplo­mat­ic efforts by the Biden admin­is­tra­tion to “head off any efforts by Bol­sonaro to sub­vert the results of the country’s heat­ed pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.” They por­trayed the arti­cle, which described efforts to pre­vent a coup, as evi­dence that Biden was help­ing Lula exe­cute one.

The MAGA claims about Brazil, that is, are ridicu­lous. Alexan­der and Ban­non are lying on Bolsonaro’s behalf, but not work­ing too hard at it. They are not actu­al­ly try­ing to prove Bol­sonaro won. Instead, as with the ornate con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries Trump and his sup­port­ers pushed in 2020, the goal is to moti­vate fol­low­ers already primed to accept any fraud claim.

Ban­non notably is using his alle­ga­tion of fraud in Brazil to push Trump’s fol­low­ers to vote in the America’s Novem­ber midterms, argu­ing that they need to over­come Demo­c­ra­t­ic cheat­ing.

The quick vot­er-fraud claims from Big Lie back­ers show that they are uncowed by any legal con­se­quences they might face from pro­mot­ing Trump’s fraud­u­lent bid to remain in pow­er. Ban­non is free on appeal after a judge sen­tenced him to four months in prison for con­tempt of Con­gress for refus­ing to com­ply with a sub­poe­na from the Jan­u­ary 6 House Select Com­mit­tee. Alexan­der is not fac­ing crim­i­nal charges, but has been sued by Capi­tol Police offi­cers for his role in orga­niz­ing events that pre­ced­ed the attack on Con­gress.

...

———-

“Trump’s Big Liars Urge Brazil’s Bol­sonaro to Refuse to Con­cede” by Dan Fried­man; Moth­er Jones; 10/31/2022

“Both men latched onto a For­eign Pol­i­cy arti­cle describ­ing diplo­mat­ic efforts by the Biden admin­is­tra­tion to “head off any efforts by Bol­sonaro to sub­vert the results of the country’s heat­ed pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.” They por­trayed the arti­cle, which described efforts to pre­vent a coup, as evi­dence that Biden was help­ing Lula exe­cute one.”

It’s Joe Biden and Lula who are car­ry­ing out the coup. That’s the mes­sage Biden and Alexan­der are push­ing on their audi­ences. Audi­ences in Brazil too, appar­ent­ly. Ali Alexan­der’s mes­sage was “Take to the streets, broth­ers of Brazil!” And Ban­non has mes­sage for US vot­ers: Biden’s theft of the elec­tion in Brazil is all the more rea­son to vote in the US midterms next week. Yes, the elec­tion results in Brazil are being used by Ban­non and Alexan­der to fur­ther a nar­ra­tive about wide­spread Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­er fraud in the US:

...
“Bol­sonaro can’t con­cede,” Trump advis­er Steve Ban­non, who in 2020 helped Trump car­ry out a plan to con­vince back­ers that he had not lost, said on Sun­day. Ban­non spoke short­ly after Brazil’s elec­toral author­i­ty announced that vot­ers had nar­row­ly elect­ed left­ist for­mer Pres­i­dent Luiz Iná­cio Lula da Sil­va, known as Lula, oust­ing Bol­sonaro after one term.

A pop­ulist some­times called the “Trump of the Trop­ics,” Bol­sonaro offered Trump his endorse­ment in 2020 and received Trump’s sup­port this year. Like Trump in 2020, the Brazil­ian pres­i­dent has worked to lay the ground­work for con­test­ing an elec­tion defeat by ques­tion­ing the valid­i­ty of vot­ing machines in Brazil, which has a ful­ly elec­tron­ic vot­ing sys­tem. He has insist­ed that he could only lose through fraud and sug­gest­ed he would not con­cede, omi­nous­ly declar­ing in August: “I have three alter­na­tives for my future: being arrest­ed, killed, or vic­to­ry.”

Bol­sonaro remained silent on Monday—he is expect­ed to address his nation on Tues­day. But his Amer­i­can fans quick­ly raced ahead of him. “Take to the streets, broth­ers of Brazil!” Ali Alexan­der, a far-right activist who orga­nized “Stop the Steal” events after Trump’s defeat, includ­ing one on Jan­u­ary 6, wrote on Trump’s social media app, Truth Social. “Mil­i­tary stand­by. Peace­ful­ly and patri­ot­i­cal­ly!”

...

Ban­non notably is using his alle­ga­tion of fraud in Brazil to push Trump’s fol­low­ers to vote in the America’s Novem­ber midterms, argu­ing that they need to over­come Demo­c­ra­t­ic cheat­ing.
...

Don’t for­get that Bol­sonaro has­n’t for­mal­ly con­ced­ed yet. All we have is the word of his chief of staff. Bol­sonaro could still change his mind. And he pre­sum­ably will change his mind if he does­n’t get an amnesty agree­ment from the courts. So Brazil isn’t in the midst of a coup. Yet. It’s in the midst of a fas­cist shake­down. Demands of amnesty for Bol­sonaro and his fam­i­ly, or else. In oth­er words, a Brazil­ian coup is still very pos­si­ble. That pos­si­bil­i­ty is lit­er­al­ly at the cen­ter of the fas­cist behind-the-scenes shake­down ‘nego­ti­a­tions’ going on right now.

#Brazil­ianSpring became a thing over the week­end. That insur­rec­tionary polit­i­cal ‘Spring’ for­tu­nate­ly nev­er mate­ri­al­ized as a result of the ‘Jan 6’-style ran­sack­ing of the Brazil­ian capi­tol on Sun­day. But the pro­pa­gan­da cam­paign behind the #Brazil­ianSpring meme was an obvi­ous suc­cess. Thou­sands of Jair Bol­sonaro sup­port­ers fol­lowed those ral­ly­ing cries into a mass crim­i­nal action, dri­ven by large­ly the same kinds of alle­ga­tions that fueled the Jan 6 riot­ers in DC: charges of mass elec­tion fraud per­pe­trat­ed by rigged elec­tron­ic vot­ing machines.

And as the fol­low­ing BBC arti­cle notes, the par­al­lels between Jan 6 go far beyond the sim­i­lar­i­ties in the ‘stolen elec­tion’ pro­pa­gan­da that drove the crowd into action. It turns out both insur­rec­tions were plot­ted by many of the same peo­ple, poten­tial­ly in the same loca­tions. Yep, two of the main fig­ures involved with orga­niz­ing the Jan 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ move­ment that result­ed in Jan 6 — Steve Ban­non and Ali Alexan­der — have their fin­ger­prints all over what just hap­pened in Brazil, with the two aggres­sive­ly push­ing the nar­ra­tive of a stolen Brazil­ian elec­tion and the need for a #Brazil­ianSpring. Alexan­der has been writ­ing “Do what­ev­er is nec­es­sary!” and claims to have con­tacts inside Brazil.

Beyond that, Jair Bol­sonaro him­self is resid­ing in Flori­da. That’s were he was when this all played out over the week­end. Hang­ing out in Flori­da. And as we’re going to see, Bol­sonaro has been spend­ing quite a bit of time in Flori­da late­ly since he appears to have entered the US using his A‑1 visa — a top-tier visa reserved for gov­ern­ment offi­cials — in the final days of his term.

So Bol­sonaro is poten­tial­ly want­ed by the gov­ern­ment of Brazil as he sits in Flori­da with a top-tier diplo­mat­ic visa reserved for gov­ern­ment offi­cials. What is the US going to do should Bol­sonaro’s extra­di­tion be request­ed? We’ll find out, but as one US offi­cial put it, “We’re in unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry here.”

Ok, first, here’s a look at the enthu­si­as­tic embrace of the #Brazil­ianSpring nar­ra­tive by Ban­non and Alexan­der. A nar­ra­tive that’s more or less a rehashed Jan 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ nar­ra­tive, includ­ing the calls to ‘do what­ev­er it nec­es­sary’:

BBC

How Trump’s allies stoked Brazil Con­gress attack

Pub­lished 01/09/2023

The scenes in Brasil­ia looked eeri­ly sim­i­lar to events at the US Capi­tol on 6 Jan­u­ary two years ago — and there are deep­er con­nec­tions as well.

“The whole thing smells,” said a guest on Steve Ban­non’s pod­cast, one day after the first round of vot­ing in the Brazil­ian elec­tion in Octo­ber last year.

The race was head­ing towards a run-off and the final result was not even close to being known. Yet Mr Ban­non, as he had been doing for weeks, spread base­less rumours about elec­tion fraud.

Across sev­er­al episodes of his pod­cast and in social media posts, he and his guests stoked up alle­ga­tions of a “stolen elec­tion” and shad­owy forces. He pro­mot­ed the hash­tag #Brazil­ianSpring, and con­tin­ued to encour­age oppo­si­tion even after Mr Bol­sonaro him­self appeared to accept the results.

Mr Ban­non, the for­mer White House chief strate­gist, was just one of sev­er­al key allies of Don­ald Trump who fol­lowed the same strat­e­gy used to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 US pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

And like what hap­pened in Wash­ing­ton on 6 Jan­u­ary 2021, those false reports and unproven rumours helped fuel a mob that smashed win­dows and stormed gov­ern­ment build­ings in an attempt to fur­ther their cause.

‘Do what­ev­er is nec­es­sary!’

The day before the Capi­tol riot, Mr Ban­non told his pod­cast lis­ten­ers: “All hell is going to break loose tomor­row.” He has been sen­tenced to four months in prison for refus­ing to com­ply with an order to tes­ti­fy in front of a Con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tee that inves­ti­gat­ed the attack but is free pend­ing an appeal.

Along with oth­er promi­nent Trump advis­ers who spread fraud rumours, Mr Ban­non was unre­pen­tant on Sun­day, even as footage emerged of wide­spread destruc­tion in Brazil.

“Lula stole the Elec­tion… Brazil­ians know this,” he wrote repeat­ed­ly on the social media site Get­tr. He called the peo­ple who stormed the build­ings “Free­dom Fight­ers”.

Ali Alexan­der, a fringe activist who emerged after the 2020 elec­tion as one of the lead­ers of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” move­ment, encour­aged the crowds, writ­ing “Do what­ev­er is nec­es­sary!” and claim­ing to have con­tacts inside the coun­try.

Fig­ures involved in Jan­u­ary 6 are cur­rent­ly applaud­ing what’s hap­pen­ing in Brazil pic.twitter.com/oRRplmHKxg— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) Jan­u­ary 8, 2023

Bol­sonaro sup­port­ers railed online about an exis­ten­tial cri­sis and a sup­posed “com­mu­nist takeover” — exact­ly the same type of rhetoric that drove the riot­ers in Wash­ing­ton two years ago.

In anoth­er par­al­lel with the Capi­tol riot, some sup­port­ers of the for­mer pres­i­dent attempt­ed to shift the blame by pin­ning the storm­ing of gov­ern­ment offices on out­side agi­ta­tors or sup­port­ers of Pres­i­dent Lula.

Rumours about anti-fas­cist antifa activists or left-wing agi­ta­tors spark­ing the Capi­tol riot gained trac­tion online and on right-wing news out­lets after 6 Jan­u­ary, but sub­se­quent crim­i­nal tri­als have con­sis­tent­ly shown that the main lead­ers and insti­ga­tors of the attack were staunch sup­port­ers of for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump.

Cast­ing doubt on vot­ing sys­tems

The links between Mr Bol­sonaro and the Trump move­ment were high­light­ed by a meet­ing in Novem­ber between the for­mer pres­i­dent and Mr Bol­sonaro’s son at Mr Trump’s Flori­da resort.

Dur­ing that trip, Eduar­do Bol­sonaro also spoke to Mr Ban­non and Trump advis­er Jason Miller, accord­ing to reports in the Wash­ing­ton Post and oth­er news out­lets.

As in the US in 2020, par­ti­san elec­tion-deniers focused their atten­tion on the mech­a­nisms of vot­ing. In Brazil, they cast sus­pi­cion on elec­tron­ic vote tab­u­la­tion machines.

Mr Ban­non post­ed mes­sages urg­ing Brazil­ian author­i­ties to “release the machines”, echo­ing calls to inves­ti­gate elec­tron­ic vot­ing in Col­orado, Ari­zona, Geor­gia and oth­er states. The Amer­i­can author­i­ties respon­si­ble for elec­tion secu­ri­ty said in 2020 that there was no evi­dence that any vot­ing sys­tem delet­ed or lost votes, changed votes, or was com­pro­mised in any way.

A ban­ner dis­played by the riot­ers on Sun­day declared “We want the source code” in both Eng­lish and Por­tuguese — a ref­er­ence to rumours that elec­tron­ic vot­ing machines were some­how pro­grammed or hacked in order to foil Mr Bol­sonaro.

6/Pro-#Bol­sonaro riot­ers demand­ing “source code.“Incredibly familiar.Notably, some of their ban­ners are in English.Interesting.Who exact­ly has been advis­ing #Brazil’s ex-pres­i­dent? pic.twitter.com/5vSNETsfqY— John Scott-Rail­ton (@jsrailton) Jan­u­ary 8, 2023

A num­ber of promi­nent Brazil­ian Twit­ter accounts which spread elec­tion denial rumours were rein­stat­ed after the elec­tion and acqui­si­tion of the com­pa­ny by Elon Musk, accord­ing to a BBC analy­sis. The accounts had pre­vi­ous­ly been banned.

Mr Musk him­self has sug­gest­ed some of Twit­ter’s own employ­ees in Brazil were “strong­ly polit­i­cal­ly biased” with­out giv­ing details or evi­dence.

...

———-

“How Trump’s allies stoked Brazil Con­gress attack”; BBC; 01/09/2023

“Across sev­er­al episodes of his pod­cast and in social media posts, he and his guests stoked up alle­ga­tions of a “stolen elec­tion” and shad­owy forces. He pro­mot­ed the hash­tag #Brazil­ianSpring, and con­tin­ued to encour­age oppo­si­tion even after Mr Bol­sonaro him­self appeared to accept the results.”

#Brazil­ianSpring! Mass street protests that force Bol­sonaro back into pow­er based on alle­ga­tions of mass vot­er fraud. That’s the angle Steve Ban­non is pre­dictably push­ing for Brazil. Suc­cess­ful­ly pushed, at least when it comes to foment­ing anoth­er insur­rec­tion. Sure, the insur­rec­tion in Brasil­ia did­n’t work either. But it hap­pened, demon­strat­ing again the pow­er of the kind of insur­rec­tionary pro­pa­gan­da Ban­non has come to spe­cial­ize in.

But it was­n’t just Ban­non. Key “Stop the Steal” orga­niz­er Ali Alexan­der has also been push­ing for a #Brazil­ianSpring:

...
Mr Ban­non, the for­mer White House chief strate­gist, was just one of sev­er­al key allies of Don­ald Trump who fol­lowed the same strat­e­gy used to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 US pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

...

Along with oth­er promi­nent Trump advis­ers who spread fraud rumours, Mr Ban­non was unre­pen­tant on Sun­day, even as footage emerged of wide­spread destruc­tion in Brazil.

“Lula stole the Elec­tion… Brazil­ians know this,” he wrote repeat­ed­ly on the social media site Get­tr. He called the peo­ple who stormed the build­ings “Free­dom Fight­ers”.

Ali Alexan­der, a fringe activist who emerged after the 2020 elec­tion as one of the lead­ers of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” move­ment, encour­aged the crowds, writ­ing “Do what­ev­er is nec­es­sary!” and claim­ing to have con­tacts inside the coun­try.

...

So with both Ban­non and Alexan­der involved with this move­ment, we have to ask how many oth­er “Stop the Steal” fig­ures have there been work­ing to orga­nize what tran­spired over the week­end? And that brings us to the oth­er major twist in this sto­ry: it turns out Bol­sonaro was already out of the coun­try and resid­ing in Flori­da. Beyond that, Bol­sonaro and his son Eduar­do even made a trip to Mar-a-Lago back in Decem­ber. A trip that Ban­non report­ed­ly attend­ed:

...
The links between Mr Bol­sonaro and the Trump move­ment were high­light­ed by a meet­ing in Novem­ber between the for­mer pres­i­dent and Mr Bol­sonaro’s son at Mr Trump’s Flori­da resort.

Dur­ing that trip, Eduar­do Bol­sonaro also spoke to Mr Ban­non and Trump advis­er Jason Miller, accord­ing to reports in the Wash­ing­ton Post and oth­er news out­lets.
...

So with Bol­sonaro not only in Flori­da over the week­end but clear­ly hav­ing spent time in the US with fig­ures like Ban­non and Alexan­der in months lead­ing up to this who were push­ing the #Brazil­ianSpring insur­rec­tion mes­sag­ing, and engaged in who knows what addi­tion­al behind-the-scenes schem­ing, we have to ask whether or not Mar-a-Lago and oth­er locales in Flori­da were crime scenes in the plan­ning of this lat­est insur­rec­tion.

Beyond that, there’s the ques­tion of what’s going to hap­pen to Bol­sonaro now that he’s like­ly going to be want­ed by Brazil­ian author­i­ties. And that brings us to anoth­er twist in the sto­ry: It turns out Bol­sonaro trav­eled to Flori­da dur­ing his final days in office, mean­ing he got to use his A‑1 top tier visa reserved for gov­ern­ment offi­cials.

So how should the US treat Bol­sonaro’s immi­gra­tion sta­tus at this point? Is that A‑1 visa still applic­a­ble even though Bol­sonaro is not only out of office but now want­ed for foment­ing an insur­rec­tion? As one US offi­cial put it, “We’re in unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry”:

Reuters

Pres­sure mounts on Biden over Bol­sonaro’s Flori­da stay after Brasil­ia riots

By Gabriel Star­gardter
Jan­u­ary 9, 2023 9:32 PM UTC Updat­ed

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 9 (Reuters) — The Unit­ed States has a Jair Bol­sonaro prob­lem.

The far-right for­mer Brazil­ian pres­i­dent flew to Flori­da two days before his term end­ed on Jan. 1, hav­ing chal­lenged the results of the Oct. 30 runoff elec­tion that he nar­row­ly lost to left­ist rival Luiz Ina­cio Lula da Sil­va. On Sun­day a vio­lent move­ment of elec­tion-deny­ing Bol­sonaro sup­port­ers stormed Brazil’s pres­i­den­tial palace, Con­gress and Supreme Court.

After watch­ing sup­port­ers of for­mer U.S. leader Don­ald Trump storm the U.S. Capi­tol two years ago, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­dent Joe Biden is now fac­ing mount­ing pres­sure to remove Bol­sonaro from his self-imposed exile in sub­ur­ban Orlan­do.

The White House said on Mon­day it had yet to receive any requests from the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment regard­ing Bol­sonaro’s sta­tus, but the for­mer Brazil­ian pres­i­den­t’s pres­ence on U.S. soil has put Biden in a cor­ner, with few good options.

By let­ting him stay, Biden invites crit­i­cism that the Unit­ed States is har­bor­ing a man accused by his suc­ces­sor of foment­ing anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic vio­lence. But forc­ing out the for­mer pres­i­dent of an allied state who entered the coun­try in good faith with a top-tier visa pos­es awk­ward ques­tions about due process.

...

FRACTIOUS RELATIONSHIP

Bol­sonaro had a frac­tious rela­tion­ship with Biden, and was already on weak­er ground back home in Brazil after los­ing broad pro­tec­tions from pros­e­cu­tion when he stepped down as pres­i­dent. Those probes could lead to his arrest or pre­vent him from run­ning for office, Reuters report­ed last week.

In Wash­ing­ton, a per­son famil­iar with the mat­ter said there would like­ly be no deci­sion on Bol­sonaro’s visa sta­tus until there is a clear­er pic­ture of what hap­pened.

John Fee­ley, who was the U.S. ambas­sador to Pana­ma from late 2015 to 2018 when the Cen­tral Amer­i­can nation sought the extra­di­tion of its for­mer Pres­i­dent Ricar­do Mar­tinel­li, said the most imme­di­ate threat to Bol­sonaro would come if his U.S. visa were revoked.

“The Unit­ed States — or any sov­er­eign nation for that mat­ter — may remove a for­eign­er, even one who entered legal­ly on a visa, for any rea­son,” Fee­ley said. “It’s a pure­ly sov­er­eign deci­sion for which no legal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion is required.”

Mar­tinel­li was extra­dit­ed from the Unit­ed States back to Pana­ma in 2018, three years after Pana­ma’s Supreme Court issued an arrest war­rant for him.

Three U.S. sources said Bol­sonaro had almost cer­tain­ly entered on an A‑1 visa, which are reserved for heads of state, diplo­mats and oth­er gov­ern­ment offi­cials.

Nor­mal­ly the A‑1 is can­celed after the recip­i­ent leaves office. But with Bol­sonaro hav­ing left Brazil before his term end­ed, they sus­pect­ed his A‑1 was still active.

One of the offi­cials, who has expe­ri­ence with the can­cel­la­tion of visas for for­mer heads of state, said there is no set time lim­it on how long some­one can stay in the Unit­ed States on an A‑1.

“We’re in unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry,” the offi­cial said.

In response to Reuters ques­tions, State Depart­ment spokesper­son Ned Price said any­one in the Unit­ed States on an A‑1 visa no longer engaged in offi­cial busi­ness must depart the coun­try with­in 30 days, or apply for a change of immi­gra­tion sta­tus. Price said he could not com­ment on an indi­vid­u­al’s visa sta­tus, but was speak­ing in gen­er­al terms about visa rules.

“If an indi­vid­ual has no basis on which to be in the Unit­ed States, an indi­vid­ual is sub­ject to removal by the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty,” Price said.

BASELESS CLAIMS

Bol­sonaro may be in no hur­ry to return to Brazil, where he is accused of insti­gat­ing a vio­lent elec­tion denial move­ment.

Lula, who pledged in his Jan. 1 inau­gu­ra­tion speech to go after Bol­sonaro if need­ed, blamed his pre­de­ces­sor for Sun­day’s vio­lence.

In a tweet on Sun­day, Bol­sonaro reject­ed Lula’s accu­sa­tions and said the inva­sion had crossed the line of peace­ful protest.

Fol­low­ing Sun­day’s attack, legal experts said Bol­sonaro may find him­self the tar­get of a Supreme Court probe, led by cru­sad­ing Jus­tice Alexan­dre de Moraes, into anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic protests, which has already yield­ed sev­er­al arrests.

If Moraes were to sign an arrest war­rant while Bol­sonaro is in the Unit­ed States, the for­mer pres­i­dent would be tech­ni­cal­ly required to fly back to Brazil and hand him­self over to police. If he refused, Brazil could issue an Inter­pol Red Notice to prompt his arrest by U.S. fed­er­al agents.

If Bol­sonaro were detained, Brazil would have to seek his extra­di­tion, which could take years to play out.

———–

“Pres­sure mounts on Biden over Bol­sonaro’s Flori­da stay after Brasil­ia riots” By Gabriel Star­gardter; Reuters; 01/09/2023

“By let­ting him stay, Biden invites crit­i­cism that the Unit­ed States is har­bor­ing a man accused by his suc­ces­sor of foment­ing anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic vio­lence. But forc­ing out the for­mer pres­i­dent of an allied state who entered the coun­try in good faith with a top-tier visa pos­es awk­ward ques­tions about due process.”

It’s a diplo­mat­ic pick­le. Does the US extra­dite Bol­sonaro even if he’s in the US on a valid visa? And it’s made all the more com­pli­cat­ed by the fact fact that Bol­sonaro appar­ent­ly arrived in the US dur­ing his final days in office using is A‑1 visa reserved for gov­ern­ment offi­cials. So how should a top-tier visa like that get treat­ed in a sit­u­a­tion like this? On the one hand, there’s appar­ent­ly no set time lim­it on how long some­one can stay in the US on an A‑1 visa. On the oth­er hand, State Depart­ment spokesper­son Ned Price is mak­ing it sound like Bol­sonaro must depart the US with­in 30 days if he’s no longer here on offi­cial busi­ness, or apply for a change of immi­gra­tion sta­tus. As one offi­cial puts it, “We’re in unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry”:

...
Bol­sonaro had a frac­tious rela­tion­ship with Biden, and was already on weak­er ground back home in Brazil after los­ing broad pro­tec­tions from pros­e­cu­tion when he stepped down as pres­i­dent. Those probes could lead to his arrest or pre­vent him from run­ning for office, Reuters report­ed last week.

In Wash­ing­ton, a per­son famil­iar with the mat­ter said there would like­ly be no deci­sion on Bol­sonaro’s visa sta­tus until there is a clear­er pic­ture of what hap­pened.

...

Three U.S. sources said Bol­sonaro had almost cer­tain­ly entered on an A‑1 visa, which are reserved for heads of state, diplo­mats and oth­er gov­ern­ment offi­cials.

Nor­mal­ly the A‑1 is can­celed after the recip­i­ent leaves office. But with Bol­sonaro hav­ing left Brazil before his term end­ed, they sus­pect­ed his A‑1 was still active.

One of the offi­cials, who has expe­ri­ence with the can­cel­la­tion of visas for for­mer heads of state, said there is no set time lim­it on how long some­one can stay in the Unit­ed States on an A‑1.

“We’re in unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry,” the offi­cial said.

In response to Reuters ques­tions, State Depart­ment spokesper­son Ned Price said any­one in the Unit­ed States on an A‑1 visa no longer engaged in offi­cial busi­ness must depart the coun­try with­in 30 days, or apply for a change of immi­gra­tion sta­tus. Price said he could not com­ment on an indi­vid­u­al’s visa sta­tus, but was speak­ing in gen­er­al terms about visa rules.

“If an indi­vid­ual has no basis on which to be in the Unit­ed States, an indi­vid­ual is sub­ject to removal by the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty,” Price said.
...

That sure sounds like the State Depart­ment is of the opin­ion that Bol­sonaro’s visa is no longer valid. Is that what we can expect from the US gov­ern­ment should Brazil made that extra­di­tion request? We’ll hope­ful­ly find out. But in the mean time, some­one might want to keep some tabs on any Bannon/Alexander/Bolsonaro meets ups in the near future. These kinds of insur­rec­tionary move­ments clear­ly have a ten­den­cy to fes­ter when left unsquashed. And there’s clear­ly a lot for unsquashed fas­cism fes­ter­ing in Flori­da right now.