This Thursday the 8th, the Federal Police arrested one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) main advisors. Filipe Martinsformer international affairs advisor to the ex-captain, was detained in Operation Tempus Veritatis, which investigates attempts to destabilize democracy in Brazil.
Known for his extreme positions, Martins was a central figure of the self-proclaimed ‘wing anti-establishment’ of Bolsonarism, proposing the craziest ideas that guided the former captain’s mandate.
Among the accusations against Martins is the authorship of the draft ‘coup draft’, a document presented to Bolsonaro with proposals to subvert the democratic order. This document would have been discussed even with the commanders of the Armed Forces.
The operation that led to his arrest had as its starting point the denunciation of Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s former aide-de-camp. In the statement, Cid would have revealed crucial details about the former president’s direct participation in writing the draft, placing Bolsonaro at the center of investigations into coup attempts. According to information from the PGR detailed by Alexandre de Moraes in the decision that approved the operation, the final section of the text ‘decreed the arrest of several authorities’, including minister Gilmar Mendes and Moraes himself, as well as the president of the Senate Rodrigo Pacheco .
The evidence of Martins’ role in the scheme, according to the PGR, shows that he ‘exercised a prominent position in legal negotiations’, negotiating with people willing to write documents that served the interests of the most radical group of Bolsonarism.
Emails held by the CPI from January 8 and requests for the Access to Information Law show that Martins was at Palácio da Alvorada four times in December 2022, after Bolsonaro’s defeat.
Investigators suspect that in one of these meetings Martins took the document to Bolsonaro and the commanders of the Brazilian Armed Forces, who allegedly requested changes to the text. The PF is investigating whether the draft is the same as the one found at the residence of former Justice Minister Anderson Torres, also the target of the operation.
‘Parallel Chancellor’
Martins, also nicknamed Sorocabannon — a reference to Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s campaign strategist and one of the key figures of the new global far right — was part of an influential group that included former chancellor Ernesto Araújo, the son of Bolsonaro, Eduardo, and the late Olavo de Carvalho, intellectual mentor of this circle and great guarantor of Martins’ nomination.
President Jair Bolsonaro, alongside minister Ernesto Araújo and advisor Filipe Martins. Photo: Reproduction/Facebook
Since 2009, Martins had followed Olavo’s courses and maintained an active presence on social media, leading a virulent group of pro-Bolsonaro activists. In 2019, he rose to the position of advisor for International Affairs to the Presidency of the Republic, a position previously held by figures such as diplomat Frederico Arruda, under Michel Temer, and Marco Aurélio Garcia, during the PT governments. His role was not limited to counseling; Martins shared the table at dinners with heads of state alongside Jair Bolsonaro and even picked a fight with the military, highlighting his influence within the government.
In 2021, Filipe Martins was denounced by the Federal Public Ministry for having made allegedly racist gestures linked to the ideas of white supremacist movements in the United States during a public session in the Senate. Later, however, he was acquitted of the charges.