Bolsonaro met at the airport with deputy chief for legal affairs before alleged alert to Milton Ribeiro

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) met with Pedro Cesar Sousa, Deputy Chief for Legal Affairs of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic at the Brasília Air Base hours before embarking on a trip to the United States, on June 8. The meeting took place on the eve of Bolsonaro’s alleged call to former education minister Milton Ribeiro, in which the president reportedly warned him about the Federal Police operation that resulted in the former minister’s arrest (listen to the audio below).

According to the president’s agenda, the meeting with Pedro Cesar took place at the Brasília Air Base, minutes after Bolsonaro arrived from a flight from Rio de Janeiro, where he had met with businessmen. The meeting with the server was the last appointment on Bolsonaro’s official agenda that day.

In a call made on June 9, intercepted by the Federal Police, as part of the Acesso Pago operation, which investigates suspected corruption in the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), the former Minister of Education told his daughter that he had spoken with the president – ​​who was traveling in the United States – and that Bolsonaro would have alerted him about a possible search and seizure operation.

“He thinks they’re going to do a search and seizure…at home…you know…yeah…it’s very sad. Good! It can happen, right? if there are indications, right…”, Milton said in the conversation intercepted with judicial authorization.

Pedro Cesar is a lawyer, specializing in civil and administrative law. He worked for almost 20 years in the Military Police of the Federal District, before becoming a parliamentary advisor to the then Deputy, Jair Bolsonaro, in 2017, a position he held until 2019, when he moved to the General Secretariat of the Presidency.

Survey made by CNN points out that throughout 2022 Bolsonaro met 59 times with Pedro Cesar and that most of the meetings took place at Palácio do Planalto, with only one more meeting at the Brasília Air Base. On March 28, the day Ribeiro left the Ministry, the president and Pedro met three times. On no other day were there so many meetings between the chief executive and the server.

THE CNN also found that the president was with the Minister of Justice, Anderson Torres, on the day that Ribeiro would have talked to the president. The Federal Police is subordinate to Torres’ portfolio.

Wanted to know if there was interference in the PF or if he alerted the minister about a possible search and seizure warrant, Planalto did not respond. This Friday (24), lawyer Frederick Wassef, who defends the president’s family, said that Bolsonaro “has no contact and has never spoken to the former minister again. [Milton Ribeiro]”.

“President Bolsonaro has no contact with the former minister of education, so if it is true, if it turns out that what he is really saying he said, because I don’t know, I don’t have access,” he said.

The defender also denied any interference by the president in the PF. “I want to make the following clear, President Bolsonaro did not interfere, he does not act, he has nothing to do with and is absolutely distant from the former minister and all the others investigated,” he said.

Wassef also said that “if the former minister used the name of President Bolsonaro, he used it without his knowledge, without his authorization, let him respond. It is up to the ex-minister to explain what he talks about”.

case chronology

June 6th to 8th: Federal Police requests the arrest and search and seizure of Milton Ribeiro and other defendants to the Justice

June 8: Bolsonaro meets with Pedro Cesar Sousa, Deputy Chief for Legal Affairs at the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, before leaving for the United States

June 8-12: Bolsonaro and presidential entourage (including Justice Minister Anderson Torres) take part in a trip to the US, where they participated in the Summit of the Americas. They leave Brazil on the 8th at 10:30 pm and return on the 12th at 12:10 am

June 9: Milton Ribeiro calls his daughter when he says that “today” he talked to President Bolsonaro and was warned about the “hunch” about a search and seizure

June 14: MPF manifests itself against the arrest and in favor of other measures

June 20: Judge’s decision on arrest and search and seizure

June 22: Former minister Milton Ribeiro, pastors Gilmar and Arilton and two other people are arrested by the PF