With support from the Fund, a team of journalists documented how a disinformation campaign, orchestrated from abroad, aimed to topple the new administration in Brazil and install defeated far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. The investigation found that since 2018, Eduardo Bolsonaro took part in 125 meetings with far-right leaders in several countries, including the U.S., and engaged cyber mercenaries to grab and hold onto political power. These alliances helped foment the coup attempt in Brazil, which ultimately failed. The reporters documented the organized effort to deny the results of the election in Brazil with a disinformation campaign to negate that country’s Supreme Court rulings shutting down challenges to Brazil’s electoral system. The journalists’ work has prompted the Brazilian Congress to ask Brazil’s attorney general to investigate Eduardo Bolsonaro’s ties to businesses abroad. The investigation was led by Agència Pública and Uol, by reporters Natalia Viana, Alice Maciel, Laura Scofield and Juliana Dal Piva and conducted in collaboration with 22 Latin American news organization and the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism.
Grantee maps U.S. and other ties to misinformation campaign supporting coup in Brazil; report sparks action from Brazilian Congress
