Brazil’s Supreme Court Opens Probe Into Bolsonaro Over Leak of Secret Police Inquiry

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Brazil's Supreme Court has launched an investigation into President Jair Bolsonaro’s release of Federal Police documents, signaling an escalation in the clash between the far-right leader and the judiciary.

"It is essential to take measures to clarify the facts, especially regarding the disclosure of the secret [Federal Police] inquiry, which added to the dissemination of fake news on the conduct of the Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court and on the voting system in Brazil," Supreme Court Justice Alexandre Moraes stated on Thursday.

Moraes further urged Bolsonaro to delete the documents on all social media.

The president criticized the Supreme Court’s decision, accusing the judiciary of a "crime against democracy" and saying that everyone already had a copy of the documents posted.

On 5 August, Bolsonaro shared seven documents, including a Federal Police inquiry on his Twitter account in a bid to prove vulnerabilities of Brazil’s long-established e-voting system. The documents describe invasions of a data bank server of the TSE detected in April 2018, months before the October vote.

Bolsonaro has repeatedly attacked Brazil’s e-voting system, introduced in the country in 1996 and used as the only voting method ever since. On 3 August, the Supreme Court opened a probe into the president’s allegations that Brazil’s electronic voting system is vulnerable to fraud and into Bolsonaro himself over alleged propagation of fake news.

Ahead of the 2022 presidential election, Bolsonaro advocates for a mixed system in which ballots will be printed out after people vote electronically so that the count was fairer. The Brazilian leader claims the 2018 electoral fraud prevented him from winning the election without a runoff.