Paulo Pimenta is a Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores/PT) Congressman from the Rio Grande de Sul city of Santa Maria who began his political careers as a student union leader in the 1980s. Since then, he has served as a student union leader, city councilor, state congressman, federal congressman and PT leader in Congress from 2018-2019. It was while serving in this role that he traveled to Brussels and presented a dossier to European Union Parliament, accusing the United States, not just of participating in, but of coordinating the Lava Jato anti-corruption investigation which destroyed key sectors of Brazilian industry causing over 1 million layoffs, and removed the leading candidate from the 2018 presidential elections facilitating the election of Jair Bolsonaro.
In August, 2020, I interviewed Congressman Pimenta for the Redfish Documentary, Dismantling Brazil: Bolsonaro’s Neoliberal Agenda. The following is a full transcript.
Can you tell me about your trip to EU Parliament in 2019? What did you do there?
When I went to EU Parliament in Brussels I brought a complete dossier about the United States’ participation in the coup, with information on names of US prosecutors and concrete proof of the participation of the Americans. I asked the parliamentarians to help us denounce, to the world, this illegal, criminal interference of the United States in Brazil.
The truth is that during this entire period [from the coup forward] we have been accumulating more and more information, we’ve looked for more documents, and this work is being constantly updated. The report which we have today is much more complete than the report which we delivered to the EU. We’ve found more facts, more videos and more documents and we continue to update this report. It’s the same documentation which we sent to the United States – we have also sent it to members of US Congress.
Can you explain more about what is in the dossier?
We prepared this dossier in English and Spanish, and these archives reveal speeches, documents, concrete information including names of US prosecutors, public statements that were made, proof of parallel meetings and events that were held, official agendas, informal collaborations which took place in defiance of Brazilian law, the presence of US agents in Brazil acting without the knowledge of government authorities – all of these things were documented and they make up part of this series of archives that I presented to the European Parliament and which I also sent to Members of US Congress.
There are documents that show Judge Sérgio Moro and the prosecutors in permanent and regular contact with the United States. Lava Jato operated as a kind of laboratory so that they could put into practice the learning and guidance that they were receiving from the United States. I am certain of this direct participation of the United States because I also had the opportunity to speak with parliamentarians from Argentina, where a similar process was taking place, with parliamentarians from Bolivia, Ecuador, leaders from Venezuela, and in all of this, in Bolivia, in Paraguay, there is proof of very similar procedures, even with the same characters. I have no doubt that, in reality, it was the Americans who were giving out the instructions here in Brazil. I also had access to the agreement between Petrobras shareholders with the US government. This deal was struck in the United States, and in this document there are a series of acknowledgments to the Lava Jato task-force for acting as a kind of prosecuting attorney against Petrobras and, due to this, they were compensated by the US with R$2.5 billion which was payment for services rendered for what, in reality, benefited the US from an economic perspective. So Lava Jato operated against the interests of Brazil and was financially compensated for this by the Americans.
Why would the US be interested in dismantling Brazilian companies?
Petrobras was one of the most important petroleum companies in the world, with exclusive technology for deep water drilling which enabled the discovery of the pre-salt reserves, which was the largest petroleum discovery of the 21st Century. Petrobras, associated with Odebrecht, owned Brazil’s 4 largest petrochemical centers in Brazil, and Braskem, which was a petrochemical subsidiary of Odebrecht, was making large investments in petrochemical production on the Gulf of Mexico, competing in the American market inside of the United States. A good part of the primary materials that were planned to be used in this were to come from the pre-salt reserves. At that moment, JBS was the largest animal protein company in the World. Today, JBS is a shadow of what it once was. Odebrecht had 200,000 workers on 5 continents and it engaged in a good part of the heavy engineering industry in Brazil too. Today, this has all been absorbed by multinationals. Embraer competed in the executive jet market with a Canadian company, and today Embraer practically lost all of its market. The technology that was developed by Brazil for the development of its nuclear program was an exclusive technology that was totally destroyed through actions by Lava Jato. All of the principal bases of the Brazilian macro-economy were hit hard and this market was totally absorbed by the multinationals, especially by American companies. This represents hundreds of thousands of jobs that were lost and a political climate that enabled us to now have, in Brazil, a President of the Republic who is a spokesman for American interests in South America.
Lula was convicted with no material evidence, in a state where he never lived, where no crime detailed in the trial was ever committed. How is his case proceeding?
The Supreme Court just released a set of information that cannot be ignored. If we make even a minimally decent reading of the Federal Constitution there is no legal argument that justifies denying a request from President Lula’s defense team for the suspension of jurisdiction of the prosecutors. We are proposing and demanding a retrial. A fair trial, which is the right of any Brazilian citizen, according to the Constitution. So we believe that the federal supreme court will acknowledge that Lula was denied the right to a fair trial and that there was interference not just by interests inside of Brazil so that the Constitution was ignored but there were also external interests. None of this can be ignored by the Supreme Court and I believe that they will declare a mistrial.
Do you think there is any chance that the DOJ will ever be punished for illegal collaboration in Lava Jato?
Regarding the Americans, I don’t believe that any justice will be served. During all the moments in which I had contact with leaders and members of congress in the United States I observed that although they believe what happened was very wrong, there is a greater economic interest behind all of this. The first deals for changing the legislation on the pre-salt reserves were made when the Democrats were running the United States Government and this relationship continued during the Republican government. Since what is at stake is control over South America, subordinating it to US interests, I don’t see any difference in attitude between the Republicans and the Democrats. They all acted against the interests of Brazil. And I have seen no sign that there will ever be a change in posture on this.
Nevertheless, there is comprehensive documentation on this with elements that could enable an investigation in the United States. It would be very important to us to see an investigation made in US Congress that could furnish us with documents and names that we have not been able to access, about the way that Lava Jato worked in the United States against Brazilian national interests. We are not going to give up working to raise consciousness of American members of Congress so they can conduct an investigation on this, that can effectively elucidate the participation of the United States in the coup.
https://www.brasilwire.com/how-the-us-l ... o-pimenta/
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US Intelligence Penetration of Brazil: an Interview with Bob Fernandes
IMPERIALISM LAVA JATO SOVEREIGNTY UNITED STATES
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On July 4, 2015, Brazil learned, through Edward Snowden, that President Dilma Rousseff and 29 members of her government were being spied on by the NSA. At that time, FBI agents were already working inside the Lava Jato investigation.
by Brian Mier
Bob Fernandes is a veteran journalist from Bahia. During his 43 year career he has worked at some of the most important newspapers and magazines in Brazil, including Folha de Sao Paulo and Istoe, covering issues such as the election of Bill Clinton and wars in Angola and Somalia. In 1994 he helped found the weekly news magazine Carta Capital and served as its Editor in Chief until 2004. During this period, he wrote over 100 cover stories, including an award-winning series of 8 investigative reports about CIA, FBI, and DEA operations in Brazil and another cover story which led to the resignation of Brazilian Federal Police Director Vicente Chelotti. For the last 15 years he worked extensively in TV as a news anchor for GNT and TV Cultura. Currently he hosts a show on Bahia State Public Television and maintains a youtube channel which has over 200,000 subscribers. In September, 2020, I interviewed him briefly about FBI and DOJ involvement in the Lava Jato investigation for the Redfish Documentary, Dismantling Brazil: Bolsonaro’s Neoliberal Agenda. The following is the full interview transcript.
How did the US get involved in the coup against Dilma Rousseff and the election season political imprisonment of Lula?
On July 4, 2015, Brazil learned, through Edward Snowden, that President Dilma Rousseff and 29 members of her government were being spied on by the NSA. At that time, FBI agents were already working inside the Lava Jato investigation. They were working far beyond the agreement that exists. There was a legal agreement, but their involvement went far beyond that. There were 18 agents, apparently, including the FBI Anti-corruption director for Latin America, Leslie Backschies – just to give you an idea of the size of this. So at the same time that Brazil learned about the NSA espionage that was being done on Petrobras, the president of the republic and 29 members of her government, 18 FBI agents were regularly meeting with the Lava Jato task force and carrying out activities far beyond what was authorized in the partnership agreement. There is a leaked conversation between Prosecutor Vlademir Aras from the Federal Public Prosecutors Office with Deltan Dallagnol, who was the Lava Jato task force leader, in which he says, “look, we have to respect the agreement, we can’t go beyond it”. And Dallagnol says, “no, let’s go ahead because it will take so long – the government can’t know about this, the Executive can’t know what we are doing.” It is impossible to be any more clear than this. This information was leaked by the Intercept during its so-called Vaza Jato investigation. It leaked all the documentation that shows this. More recently, the investigative journalism site Apublica also published information about the presence and the amplification of the of the FBI in Brazil. In 2017 there was a meeting in São Paulo that Leslie was in, along with other FBI agents and Brazilian businessmen, with Brazilian government representatives to discuss corruption in Brazil and the press were barred from attending. Imagine if this had happened in the United States or in Germany or anywhere else. So this is the current scenario, remembering that in 2014 there was already US wire tapping in Brazil and that Leslie Backschies started working in Brazil in 2012.
How long has the FBI been active in Brazil? Can you talk a bit about your investigative work in the 1990s for Carta Capital?
During the end of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration, during the last few years of his government until the time Lula took power, the Brazilian Federal Police did not have enough funding to properly operate. At this time, we published and leaked documents that proved that the DEA, the American anti-drug agency, paid for individual Federal Police agents to conduct drug trafficking investigations through direct deposits into their personal bank accounts. We published documents proving this – legal receipts. I also published articles, with backing documentation, that showed that the CIA was working out of the main Federal Police station’s anti-terrorism unit. In order to work in this unit for the Federal Police at the time, you had to go to Washington and take lie detector tests in hotels -not in Langley – during which they would ask things like, ‘are you corrupt? Are you a homosexual?”
At the time we published the names of many of the agents who went there and years later we published an internal document from the Federal Police that proved all of this. So for you to act inside the main interception base of the Federal Police, you had to take a lie detector test administered by the CIA. It was part of a shared information partnership between the Federal Police and the CIA. This unit was built inside the Federal Police during the Sarney government with money from the US State Department, and its first 20 automobiles came from the CIA in Paraguay. This was all published and nobody ever denied it there is documentation proving it. So this story about US collaboration didn’t start with Lava Jato – it goes back decades. What we have now is a deepening, a widening, it’s a free for all now. Now, with Brazil delivering the Alcantara rocket launching base to the United States, with Embraer sold off and then given back by the Americans, it is now something that is much more in the open. Unfortunately, as Brazil is continental in size and focused in on itself, there is no habit of looking at the outside world, not even at its neighbors. Brazilians don’t think this is important, they don’t pay attention to or understand the meaning of this. Brazilians, in their great majority, do not care or understand what this means. They don’t understand what it means for the Federal Police to have an operation… Brazil had 15 Federal Police bases which operated within the shared information regime with the CIA. Imagine this in any other country.. But here, nobody gave it a second thought.
https://www.brasilwire.com/us-intellige ... fernandes/
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“Put the US attorneys to work” (against Lula): Sergio Moro caught in new scandal
Supreme Court Minister Ricardo Lewandowski has lifted the confidentiality on conversations between prosecutors from Operation Lava Jato and ex-judge Sergio Moro, which were captured via a hack of the Telegram messaging platform in 2018
The new conversations were released to former President Lula’s defence team.
The material, 50 pages long, adds to excerpts released last week which revealed Sergio Moro coaching the Lava Jato task force on how to present the case of the so called triplex in Guarujá, alleged to have belonged to former president Lula, for maximum political impact. It was the case which was used to keep Lula out of the 2018 election, which he was on course to easily win according to polls.
The latest release further emphasises that the Lava Jato Task force was acting concertedly against Lula, Dilma Rousseff, and the Workers Party, during the entire coup period between the 2014 and 2018 elections. This was happening in collaboration with U.S. government agencies and its expanded state.
On November 4, 2015, Lava Jato prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol communicates illegally about the Lula case with Judge Sergio Moro. It’s timing shows how malfeasance in Lava Jato, in collaboration with U.S. agencies, was already underpinning the then ongoing campaign for the removal of Dilma Rousseff’s government on corruption grounds, as well as efforts to prosecute Lula.
In it they refer directly to illegal direct contact with US authorities and Moro encourages the use of US attorneys on the case against Lula.
Three months later, on 27th February 2016, Moro asks Lava Jato Task force head Deltan Dallagnol what he thinks of public communications coming from the Workers Party.18:32:04 Moro: Did you see the decision of event 16 in case 5048739-91? The due diligence deserves direct contact with US authorities.
21:22:08 Deltan: I haven’t seen … I don’t think there’s been a subpoena from us yet. We will provide…
21:22:16 Deltan: Thanks for informing
21:24:24 Moro: Put US attorneys to work because nothing so far, haha.
21:25:16 Deltan: Haha
21:25:24 Deltan: They are just sucking for now
21:25:32 Deltan: Today I talked to them about the accounts there at Ode (Odebrecht) to see if they do something lol
21:28:16 Moro: This one may now be simpler and perhaps more relevant.
The next day Dallagnol makes fun of the Workers Party’s anniversary celebrations, posting various media articles hostile to the PT and former President, and warns of how they must use the media to their advantage.11:21:24 Moro: What do you think of these crazy notes from the national directorate of PT? Should we officially react? Or will it help?
12:30:44 Deltan: In my opinion and that of our communication adviser, no, because it has not had repercussion, and we would give more visibility to what has no credibility.
03:08:00 Deltan: There were more people in my lecture than at PT’s birthday haha, who were entitled to other attractions. 9 (Lula) is increasingly weakened, although we cannot underestimate him, much less make any movement in the media that strengthens him. We have to take care of communication in this case.
Dallagnol’s colleague then depicts their pursuit of Lula in terms of the atomic bombing of Japan during the second world war.
On 16th March, prosecutors are later seen posting photos and videos from right wing protests against the appointment of Lula as Dilma Rousseff’s chief of staff, and celebrating his judicial blocking from assuming the role, which followed Moro’s illegal leak of an edited telephone conversation between Rousseff and Lula. The audio, broadcast on Globo’s Journal Nacional, constructed the impression of wrongdoing on her part, and directly assisted the campaign for her impeachment, which was by then imminent.12:22:20 Januario Paludo: First step: obstruction. Then we talk about the rest. But the agreement is capitulation. If necessary we will use the tactic of US in World War II to force Japan’s capitulation. Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The implications of the latest release of Lava Jato Task force conversation transcripts are still becoming clear. The full document can be found here, with further in-depth analysis to follow.21:05:53 Orlando SP: I’m worried about Moro! With the reasons for the decision. There will be representations left over for him.
21:06:48 Laura Tessler: Yes, there will. And against us. We knew that.
21:09:14 Orlando SP: He was justified by STF precedents to release audios?
21:09:25 Laura Tessler: I don’t think so … they have already reached the limits of the bizarre … the population is on our side … any attempt at intimidation will turn against them.
Document - https://www.brasilwire.com/wp-content/u ... eticao.pdf
https://www.brasilwire.com/put-the-us-a ... w-scandal/