Brazilian Hacker Claims Bolsonaro Asked Him to Hack Into the Voting System Ahead of 2022 Vote
A Brazilian hacker claimed at a congressional hearing Thursday that then-President Jair Bolsonaro wanted him to hack into the country’s electronic voting system to expose its alleged weaknesses ahead of the 2022 presidential election.
Walter Delgatti Neto did not provide any evidence for his claim to the parliamentary commission of inquiry. But his detailed testimony raises new allegations against the former far-right leader, who is being investigated for his role in the Jan. 8 riots in the capital city of Brasilia.
Delgatti told lawmakers he met in person with Bolsonaro on Aug. 10, 2022, for between 90 minutes and two hours at the presidential residence. He said he told the leader he could not hack into the electronic voting system because it wasn’t connected to the internet.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers said in a statement they will take judicial action against Delgatti, who they accused of “bringing false information and allegations, without any evidence.”
The lawyers acknowledged the hacker met with the former president and said the far-right leader ordered his defense minister to open investigations on the country’s electoral system based on claims he had heard from the hacker.
Creomar de Souza, founder of political risk consultancy Dharma Politics, said Delgatti’s testimony “is yet another brick in a wall of problems around Bolsonaro and some of his allies.” De Souza said the former president is in deeper legal trouble because his base in congress wanted the congressional inquiry to become a platform for his defense — and it has instead put him deeper in hot water.
Bolsonaro’s political nemesis, leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, won the Oct. 30, 2022, presidential election with just 50.9% of the votes.
Delgatti said Bolsonaro wanted the attempted hack to show voters that Brazil’s voting system was not reliable.
He said that after he explained why he could not hack into the electoral system, the Bolsonaro campaign asked him to tamper with a borrowed voting machine to make it appear, less than a month before the election’s first round, that the machine had been successfully hacked and results could be compromised….
