Brazil: Leak Shows Pro-Impeachment Group Funded By Opposition

Leaked audio revealed that the Free Brazil Movement — one of the loudest voices calling for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in the lead up to her ouster — received financial and political support from opposition political parties. 

The Free Brazil Movement, known as MBL, billed itself as a non-partisan organization, however the online web portal UOL leaked a conversation with one of the founders of the movement boasting about having secured a deal with Rousseff's political opponents. 

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In the recording, Renan Antonio Ferreira dos Santos, national coordinator for the MBL, says opposition political parties agreed to print material free-of-cost and help mobilize their members to attend rallies calling for the impeachment of Rousseff.

The parties mentioned in the recording, including the PMDB, PSDB, and Democrats, are now all part of the coup-imposed government of Michel Temer.

Many of the lawmakers who voted in favor of ousting Rousseff cited the impeachment demonstrations as proof that Brazilians wanted to see the president removed from her post.

Renan dos Santos confirmed to UOL that the recording was authentic. MBL later claimed that it was “natural” that political parties would help turn people out to the demonstrations. The group also denied that political parties influenced their political outlook of the group.

The MBL is a far-right collective that believe the solutions to the country's economic problems are based on free-market policies. Fabio Ostermann and Juliano Torres, two of MBL leaders, were educated in the Atlas Leadership Academy, linked to the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, financed by the notorious U.S. businessmen the Koch Brothers.

Politicians who support the ouster of Rousseff have denied that her removal was a coup but recent evidence shows that her impeachment was a complex plot driven by her political opponents.

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Two other leaked recordings showed key members of the coup government were scheming with members of the Supreme Court and military command to ensure Rousseff’s ouster and did so to derail an ongoing corruption investigation.

One of the authors of the impeachment document that eventually led to Rousseff's ouster, Janaína Paschoal, admitted she accepted approximately US$12,400 from the PSDB to draft the impeachment request. 

President Dilma Rousseff was impeached without evidence of a crime, and ousted from her position for at least 180 days by the Senate.