He said that after he explained why he could not hack into the electoral system, the Bolsonaro campaign asked him to tamper with a borrowed voting machine to make it appear, less than a month before the election’s first round, that the machine had been successfully hacked and results could be compromised. The fraudulent hack was to be shared with news media, Delgatti said, but it was cancelled.
Protesters, supporters of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro, storm the National Congress building in Brasilia on January 8, a week after his sucessor Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, took office.Credit: AP
When the conversation got too technical, Delgatti said, Bolsonaro referred him to the Ministry of Defence, which the president had asked to prepare a report listing potential weaknesses in the voting system for the body that supervises elections.
Delgatti said he met with technical experts from the ministry to discuss the electronic voting system on five occasions. The first time, he said, was right after meeting with Bolsonaro, when he was driven from the presidential residence to the ministry, entering through the back entrance.
Bolsonaro long stoked belief among his hardcore supporters that the nation’s electronic voting system was prone to fraud, though he never presented any evidence nor cast doubt on the results of his own election four years earlier.
In June, a panel of judges concluded Bolsonaro abused his power by casting unfounded doubts on the electronic voting system and barred him from running for office again until 2030.
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Delgatti, who rose to fame in 2019 for leaking messages from several prosecutors involved in the Carwash anti-corruption probe that put dozens of top politicians and businessmen behind bars, told the commission that he spoke to Bolsonaro one more time, over the phone.
During the call, he said, Bolsonaro told him the phone of Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes had been tapped and asked him to claim ownership of the tapping in case authorities investigated the case.
Moraes, who at one point also led the top electoral court that supervised the election, was a recurring target of Bolsonaro and his supporters. They argued he and the rest of the court were biased against Bolsonaro and favoured his main opponent, Lula.
Delgatti said Bolsonaro promised him a presidential pardon in case he ended up being investigated for his actions.
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During the hearing, Bolsonaro’s allies in the commission questioned Delegatti’s credibility.
In 2015, Delegatti was jailed for lying about being a federal police investigator. Two years later, he was investigated for allegedly forging documents, which he denies. Several people have also accused him of embezzlement – allegations that resurfaced during the hearing.
In Brazil, witnesses caught lying before a parliamentary commission of inquiry can be imprisoned, said Luis Claudio Araujo, a law professor at Ibmec University in Rio de Janeiro.
Members of parliamentary commissions have the power to investigate, but also pass on information to prosecutors and federal police, Araujo said.
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The congressional hearing adds to the numerous legal headaches facing Bolsonaro for activities during his term in office.
Federal police earlier this month alleged Bolsonaro received cash from the nearly $US70,000 sale of two luxury watches he received as gifts from Saudi Arabia while in office. Officers raided the homes and offices of several people purportedly involved in the case, including a four-star army general. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing involving the gifts.
AP
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