(Headline USA) A new report alleges the Biden administration mounted an “unannounced campaign” in 2022 to meddle in Brazil’s presidential election and ensure that far-Left Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the office.
The Financial Times revealed it spoke to six former or current U.S. officials who were involved in the effort, as well as to several Brazilian leaders aware of it.
These sources alleged a government-wide effort on the part of the Biden administration, including the military, the intelligence community, the State Department and the White House, to undermine former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
One former top State Department official called the Biden administration’s strategy a “very unusual” messaging campaign, which it rolled out in the months leading up to the vote, “using both public and private channels.”
President Joe Biden also had “a more direct motivation” to ensure Bolsonaro’s loss: Bolsonaro’s similarities to former President Donald Trump.
Bolsonaro, like Trump, suggested he would challenge the results of Brazil’s elections if Lula won. Biden reportedly wanted to make sure Bolsonaro was unable to do so.
“There’s a parallel here with what we saw after the U.S. elections in 2020 and then Jan. 6—I think it’s made everyone’s antennae much more sensitive to these things,” Matt Duss, a former top foreign-policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said at the time.
The Biden administration also issued threats to Bolsonaro’s administration in rare, escalatory diplomatic meetings. The intent of these meetings was to communicate to Brazilian officials that there would be consequences for supporting Bolsonaro, the sources said.
In July 2021, for example, Biden’s CIA director, William Burns, traveled to Brazil to meet with senior Brazilian officials. During the meeting, he warned them that Bolsonaro should stop casting doubt on the integrity of Brazil’s elections.
A month later, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan issued a similar warning. And in June 2022, Biden reportedly made this threat directly to Bolsonaro at the Summit of the Americas meeting in Los Angeles.
