Jair Bolsonaro’s ex-sister-in-law accuses him of keeping his advisers’ salaries when he was a deputy | Andrea Siqueira Valle’s complaint was disseminated by the UOL portal and the newspaper “Folha de Sao Paulo”

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was implicated in the embezzlement of public funds during his time as an MP, by hiring family members as ghost employees or “gnocchi” who were to return part of their salaries. The information came from an investigation based on the WhatsApp audios of a former sister-in-law of the head of state revealed by the UOL site and the newspaper Newspaper. With a disapproval rate just up from 36% to 48% according to a private investigation, the far-right president launched a furious counterattack on the so-called Vacunagate investigation and suggested that there are videos that would link an alleged pedophilia case to a member of the Federal Supreme Court, the highest court in the country.

Bolsonaro’s “cracks”

In one of the audios revealed by the UOL portal, the ex-sister-in-law of the president, the bodybuilder Andrea Siqueira Valle, affirms that in his time as a deputy (1991-2018) Bolsonaro he kept part of the salary of his collaborators in return (what is called in Brazil “rachadinhas”). This is what he would have done with his brother André Siqueira Valle when he worked in Congress as a parliamentary adviser.

“André caused a lot of problems because he never returned the money that had to be returned. He was to return six thousand reais and he would return two thousand and three. He did this for a long time until Jair called me and said, “Enough, you can get him to quit because he never gives me back the money he has to pay back”, is he heard in part of the recording.

Another of the published audios records conversations in which Bolsonaro was cited as “01”, nickname that would indicate him as the leader of an irregular gang in which he participated former policeman Fabricio Queiroz, a friend of Bolsonaro who was jailed for coordinating the network of salary declarations of Flavio Bolsonaro’s advisers in the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro. Queiroz too was investigated due to the transfer of money of questionable origin to the president’s wife, Michelle Bolsonaro.

Siqueira Valle’s revelations come at Bolsonaro’s worst moment of popularity. On Saturday, for the third time since May 29, the opposition called for protests in more than 300 cities to demand his resignation and demand that one of the 123 impeachment requests against the president. Among the impeachment demands are the two recent government scandals over alleged corruption in the purchase of coronavirus vaccines. For this reason, the far-right leader launched a counterattack on Monday that primarily targeted the Supreme Court.

“Blackmail” and “absurd accusations”

In a series of messages posted on Twitter, Bolsonaro tried to link the left and Brazilian justice to child abuse. “We will assume that there is an authority filmed in a scene with minors (or with people of the same sex or with traffickers) and that a so-called ‘Daniel’ is resorting to blackmail by threatening to disclose this video“said Bolsonaro. The reference to Daniel is to the ex-guerrilla and former chief of staff of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Jose dirceu, who used the nickname when he visited Cuba during the Brazilian military dictatorship in the 1970s.

“When they have nothing against their main target, then they go after their children, relatives and friends.. They open investigations, absurd accusations, break banking and telephone secrecy, determine searches and dictate arbitrary prisons, ”Bolsonaro declared. The far-right president hinted that Dirceu’s “blackmail” made possible his house arrest in his corruption convictions.

Bolsonaro regularly testifies against members of the Brazilian Court and especially against Luis Barrosso, who as head of electoral justice rejects the suspicions of fraud that the president launches on the Brazilian electoral system as he begins to feel defeated for the elections of 2022. In fact, according to a poll prepared by the MDA Institute, former President Lula da Silva would overtake Bolsonaro in the first round and in a hypothetical ballot, obtaining 52.6% of the vote against 33.3% for the leader far right.