With Bolsonaro Facing Prosecution, NYT Renews Attacks on Brazil's Courts
December 6, 2024
Brian Mier
Brazil’s Federal Police released an 884-page report on November 26, laying out the evidence used for its November 21 indictments of former President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 of his cronies. Among the revelations are evidence showing that Bolsonaro knew about a plot carried out by army special forces officers to assassinate President Lula da Silva, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes, and proof that Bolsonaro oversaw a complex plan with six working groups to enact a military coup after losing the election in 2022.
This news was covered in media outlets around the world, from the Washington Post, Reuters and AP to the Guardian and Le Monde. Curiously enough, the New York Times, which has given ample coverage to Brazilian politics and the ongoing investigations against Bolsonaro, remained silent.
When former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was accused of trying to overthrow the government, the New York Times (11/21/24) reported that “the police did not provide any specifics about Mr. Bolsonaro’s actions”—but when the Federal Police released 884 pages of specifics days later, the Times was silent.
Five days earlier, in an article about the indictments, Times reporter Ana Ionova (11/21/24) misleadingly wrote, “The police did not provide any specifics about Mr. Bolsonaro’s actions that led to their recommendations.” So why, five days later, when a mountain of material evidence and plea bargain testimony transcripts were released, demonstrating exactly why the police recommended that the attorney general file three criminal charges against Bolsonaro, would the Times not join in with the other media outlets to add clarification?
As I’ve written before (FAIR.org, 7/7/23), the Times has aligned itself with a toxic narrative pushed by Bolsonaro, along with international allies like Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson, to discredit Brazil’s court system. Most of their efforts have focused on Moraes, the former Electoral Court president and current Supreme Court minister. As the police report shows, delegitimizing Moraes was one of the strategies used to build public support for the 2023 coup attempt.
Furthermore, since the failure of that attempt, the attacks on Moraes have been used by conservatives to build public sympathy for amnesty for Bolsonaro, in a move to pressure Congress to restore his political rights so that he can run for election in 2026.
Moraes’ central position as a target in the strategy is demonstrated in intercepted WhatsApp conversations between members of the group who were indicted in the coup investigation. A review of Times articles covering Moraes over the last two years shows that, at the least, the newspaper has acted as an unwilling accomplice, or “useful idiot” by perpetuating the coup plotters’ judicial overreach narrative.
More:
https://fair.org/home/with-bolsonaro-facing-prosecution-nyt-renews-attacks-on-brazils-courts/
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