Bolsonaro: Car Wash Exposé Is 'Gay Plot' Against Gov't

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro defended Justice Minister Sergio Moro on Wednesday saying that former federal senator Jean Wyllys, The Intercept's journalist Glenn Greenwald and his husband David Miranda are all part of a "gay" plot against him.

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"I did not see anything abnormal so far," said Bolsonaro at a press conference held in Guaratingueta, Sao Paulo, regarding the revelations about irregularities made in the "Car Wash" probe, a judicial investigation in which high-level officers seemingly colluded to imprison former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and keep him out of the 2018 presidential campaign.

"One of them was arrested in England for espionage a short time ago; another is suspected of selling his office here; and the other, that girl, the girlfriend of the one who is outside Brazil. It's a plot," he added.

The former senator from the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) responded to the far-right President's assertions by recalling that his attitudes actually offend all women.

"In referring to me as 'that girl' as a way of offending, in supposing that it would offend me, the President treated the female gender as something contemptible, minor, subordinate, that is to say, to be a woman is an insult," Wyllys tweeted. Wyllys is was Brazil's second openly gay member of parliament and the first congressman who was a gay-rights activist.

"Bolsonaro says that Moro is a national heritage and qualifies Jean Wyllys as a girl."

LGTBI activists and left-wing politicians pointed out that Bolsonaro's words are a clear proof that there is no homophobia without either sexism or misogyny, and vice versa. "Every homophobic also hates women...No surprise."

“Bolsonaro basically lied about Glenn, David and me by inventing that The Intercept exposé of the Car Wash crimes is a gay conspiracy to overthrow his government, which promotes social homophobia and incites violence against us,” the former senator added.

The Brazilian political elites' attitudes, however, are not new. Wyllys, who had been three times elected Federal congressman for the state of Rio de Janeiro, was forced to abandon public life due to death threats and left his country in January.

Greenwald, a U.S. journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize and exposed how the presiding judge over Lula's case influenced legal proceedings, was also threatened by a Bolsonaro's lawmaker last week. Miranda, his husband, received intimidating emails after the revelations were made by The Intercept on June 9.