The government of Brazil indicted conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday on charges of conspiracy and inserting false data into government information systems, accusing him of falsifying proof of ingestion of a Wuhan coronavirus vaccine to travel to the United States.
If prosecutors use the indictment to formally file charges, Bolsonaro may face up to 12 years in prison.
The indictment is the latest legal action against Bolsonaro by the government of socialist convicted felon President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who narrowly defeated Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential election. Bolsonaro supporters decried the election as unfair citing the nebulous circumstances under which the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), the nation’s highest court, overturned the multiple convictions against Lula on charges of corruption during his previous two terms as president, allowing him to run again. The Armed Forces of Brazil added to concerns about election integrity by publishing a statement in which it “did not exclude the possibility of the existence of fraud or inconsistency in the electronic voting machines or in the 2022 electoral process.”
Brazilian ex-president (2003-2011) Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrives at the Federal Police headquarters where he is due to serve his 12-year prison sentence, in Curitiba, Parana State, Brazil, on April 7, 2018. (HEULER ANDREY/AFP via Getty)
Following Lula’s inauguration, the Brazilian government banned Bolsonaro from holding public office until 2030, launched multiple police raids against Bolsonaro and his allies, and seized his passport to prevent him from leaving the country.
President of the Supreme Electoral Court, Minister Alexandre de Moraes, drinks coffee during the trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro at the Supreme Court in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, June 29, 2023, as judges continue evaluating the case which claims Bolsonaro abused his power by using government communication channels to promote his campaign and cast “unfounded” doubts on the country’s electronic voting system. If proven, it could make Bolsonaro ineligible for eight years. (Gustavo Moreno/AP)
The charges revealed on Tuesday stem from Bolsonaro’s last departure from the country, a prolonged visit to the United States from December 2022 through March 2023. At the time, the administration of leftist President Joe Biden maintained a ban on foreign nationals entering the United States without proof that they had ingested one of several approved Wuhan coronavirus vaccine products. Bolsonaro has for years vocally opposed the use of novel vaccines against coronavirus and said that he personally would not take one as he had already recovered from a coronavirus infection.
Supporters of former Brazilian far-right President Jair Bolsonaro stand in front of the home he is staying in, hoping he will emerge, at Encore resort at Reunion on January 12, 2023, in Kissimmee, Florida. (Paul Hennessy/Anadolu Agency via Getty)
Brazilian police officers raided Bolsonaro’s home in May, claiming to have evidence that Bolsonaro used false vaccine cards to get himself and his 12-year-old daughter Laura into America. His wife, former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, reportedly consumed a vaccine product. Police also raided the home of top Bolsonaro aide Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, among several others around the former president.
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaks to the press outside his home before getting into a car after Federal Police agents carried out a search and seizure warrant in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, May 3, 2023. When asked about the search of Bolsonaro’s home in Brasilia, the Federal Police press office gave a statement saying officers were carrying out searches and arrests related to the introduction of fraudulent data related to the COVID-19 vaccine into the nation’s health system. (Eraldo Peres/AP)
Brazilian police indicted Bolsonaro along with 16 other people. According to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo, Cid procured a plea bargain agreement after telling police that Bolsonaro found out he had access to vaccine cards and ordered him to print illegitimate vaccination proof cards for himself and his daughter. He claimed that he printed the vaccine cards and gave them to Bolsonaro in person.
O Globo reported that the police indictment claimed that it had found evidence that the IP address accessing the Brazilian government’s health database to modify information regarding the Bolsonaros’ vaccine status is affiliated with the Planalto Palace, the office of the president of the republic. The issuing of the documents, it continued, was apparently done through Cid’s phone. The information appeared in the system days before Bolsonaro traveled to Florida in December 2022.
Bolsonaro has not made any public statements on the indictments at press time. In May, following the police raids related to the investigation, Bolsonaro said that he was “surprised” at the allegations because he had never claimed to be vaccinated.
“I have never been asked for a vaccination card anywhere; there is no tampering on my part,” Bolsonaro told reporters at the time. “There isn’t. I didn’t take the vaccine and that’s it. I never denied that. There were people who pressured me to take the vaccine. Yes, natural. I decided not to take it because I read the Pfizer “‘leaflet'”.
“I did not take the vaccine,” Bolsonaro repeated. “A personal decision of mine — after reading the Pfizer package insert, I decided not to take it.”
“My wife’s vaccine card was also photographed, she took the vaccine in the United States, from Janssen [Johnson & Johnson]. And the other, my daughter, Laura, 12 years old, didn’t take the vaccine either. She has a medical report regarding that,” Bolsonaro asserted.
Bolsonaro was publicly rejecting the concept of a coronavirus vaccine months before the debut of the mRNA-based vaccine products from the companies Pfizer and Moderna.
“I’m telling you, I’m not going to take it. It’s my right,” he said in November 2020. “I’m healed from Covid. I have antibodies, no problems.”
During a Congressional hearing in Washington this month, Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Congressman himself, told American lawmakers that, under Lula, Brazil is under threat of “turning into a Cuba or a Venezuela.”
Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, during a demonstration on Brazil’s Independence Day on September 7, 2021, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Amauri Nehn/NurPhoto via Getty)
“Today, unfortunately, I live in my own movie about the gulag. My father is now persecuted and slandered in various ways, and as in any tyranny, the limit of the ridiculous no longer exists,” the younger Bolsonaro said.
“We are living this right now and with not even a single word from the Biden Administration, State Department, or any governmental authority from the homeland of democracy — the United States of America,” he continued. “Brazil, unfortunately, is not a democracy anymore.”