Brazil-based lawyer turned journalist Glenn Greenwald made his title in 2013 with exposures of US spying on the world, together with the then authorities of Dilma Rousseff. Regardless of common critiques of US imperialism elsewhere on the earth, since 2015 he has revealed little or nothing on his authorities’s involvement in Brazil, and his newest e book puzzlingly omits documented, overtly admitted US participation in Operation Lava Jato, the disgraced bilateral lawfare operation which jailed Lula and introduced Bolsonaro to energy.
With Bolsonaro now working in opposition to Lula for re-election, the United States government has moved to distance itself from any anti-democratic actions which threaten the October vote, making scrutiny of its involvement over the past decade all of the extra essential. – Editors
Evaluation: Securing Democracy: My Combat for Press Freedom and Justice in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, by Glenn Greenwald. 2021. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
By Sean T. Mitchell. Initially revealed at FAIR.
Glenn Greenwald’s e book, Securing Democracy: My Combat for Press Freedom and Justice in Bolsonaro’s Brazil, opens along with his recollection of a dialog through which Carl Bernstein, the US journalist of Watergate fame, informed him that he’d by no means get one other scoop as “massive or impactful” because the Snowden archive (p. viii), for which Greenwald was the principal journalistic supply.
Not so. On Mom’s Day 2019, only a few months into the administration of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, Greenwald, the US-born, Rio de Janeiro–primarily based journalist (and countless supply of Twitter controversy), would obtain his second “once-in-a-lifetime scoop” (p. vii). The news arrived from a supply who had hacked a large archive of leaks that may go on to remodel Brazilian politics. The archive contained years of dialog on the Telegram app by the important thing prosecutors and decide of the Brazilian “anti-corruption” activity pressure often called Lava Jato (Portuguese for “Automotive Wash”). Securing Democracy tells the story of the reporting on these leaks by Greenwald and his colleagues on the Intercept.
It’s exhausting to overstate the significance of all this for Brazil. Whereas the large, multi-year Lava Jato investigation was receiving rapturous reward in Brazilian and foreign media (FAIR.org, 3/8/21), it was releasing illegally obtained and misleading wiretaps to the media that created the situations for the mushy coup that unseated President Dilma Rousseff of the PT (Employees’ Occasion) in 2016. After which Lava Jato put the PT’s 2018 presidential frontrunner, former President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, behind bars, securing Bolsonaro’s election. The work carried out by Greenwald and his colleagues (and, later, by Lula’s protection group, as soon as they received the archive) confirmed all this to be deliberate and farcical: Lava Jato was working illegally with a key aim of destroying the electorally profitable left.
Intercept (6/9/19)
Explosive revelations
Working in secrecy, Greenwald and his colleagues concurrently released three articles on the Intercept in June 2019, all primarily based on these Telegram conversations. Cleverly named “Vaza Jato” (vaza means “leak” in Portuguese), the collection in its first installments confirmed that Sergio Moro, the important thing decide concerned in Lava Jato (who by then was Bolsonaro’s safety minister), had been appearing unlawfully as “clandestine chief of the prosecution” (p. xiv).
These early releases additionally confirmed that, regardless of their denials, the “task-force members overtly plotted the best way to use their prosecutorial powers to forestall Lula’s Employees’ Occasion from successful the 2018 election” (p. xv). They usually confirmed that the duty pressure introduced prison expenses in opposition to Lula regardless of “an absence of proof…safe within the data that Moro can be the one adjudicating the costs” (p. xv).
Over the approaching months, the explosive revelations saved on coming, launched by the Intercept Brasil and a wide range of Brazilian journalistic companions. To call only a few sordid examples mentioned in Securing Democracy: Moro instructed the duty pressure to guard Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the previous center-right president, as a result of he was “an essential political ally”; the duty pressure mocked the demise of Lula’s seven-year-old grandson; they usually “conspired to hide data from the Supreme Court docket” (pp. 158-159).
The work that Greenwald recounts in Securing Democracy leaves no cheap doubt concerning the corrupt and politicized character of the “anti-corruption” operation that took down the left and introduced the far-right to energy in Brazil via extra-democratic means. The e book additionally presents harrowing accounts of the hazards and threats (each legalistic and violent) that Greenwald and his collaborators confronted from Bolsonaro’s authorities and followers for his or her journalistic work.
For all this, the e book is nicely value studying, and supplies a elementary service to democracy and freedom of the press in Brazil and globally. However the omissions within the e book concerning the sources that Greenwald utilized are additionally telling and essential.
The lacking US connection
As Brian Mier (Brasilwire, 2/18/21) famous, the Intercept and its companions had already revealed 95 articles primarily based on the Vaza Jato archive, over the course of 9 months, earlier than releasing the primary article analyzing the frequent look of US authorities officers in that archive. This, and the collection of articles that adopted, “The FBI and Lava Jato,” would go on to win Brazil’s Vladimir Herzog Prize. Greenwald’s earlier Vaza Jato reporting had additionally received this prize, and he refers to it in Securing Democracy as “probably the most prestigious and significant prize a journalist can obtain in Brazil” (p. 222), though Securing Democracy doesn’t point out this second Vladimir Herzog Prize.
Intercept Brasil (3/12/20): “Lava Jato did every part to assist American justice—together with circumventing the Brazilian authorities.”
This second award-winning a part of the bigger Vaza Jato collection examines how america authorities collaborated with Lava Jato in any respect phases of its existence, usually in secrecy, and beneath each Obama and Trump administrations. These info have obtained criticism from major scholars and political figures, but not from Greenwald. The primary article analyzing US involvement was launched by the Intercept Brasil (3/12/20), drawing on Greenwald’s archive, however solely after Greenwald had stopped publishing articles primarily based on that archive. Greenwald doesn’t look at the US function in Lava Jato in Securing Democracy.
Greenwald and his colleagues had shared sections of the archive with a few of Brazil’s main journalistic shops, akin to Folha de São Paulo and Veja, each due to the help they might provide and to assist present a protect in opposition to persecution by Bolsonaro’s authorities (p. 150). The Intercept reported on the involvement of america in Lava Jato, nevertheless, with the partnership of a smaller outlet, Agência Pública.
In July 2019, Brazil’s Federal Police apprehended Walter Delgatti Neto, the hacker who had accessed the Telegram archive and contacted Greenwald. Delgatti at present faces the opportunity of a lifelong prison sentence. Brazil’s supreme court docket launched elements of the archive to Lula’s protection group in 2021, and the entire archive in January 2022.
It’s from this later examination of Delgatti’s archive that we all know that Lava Jato’s chief prosecutor, Deltan Dallagnol, referred to Lula’s arrest as a “reward from the CIA” (Progressive Worldwide, 12/2/21), a proven fact that was revealed after the discharge of Securing Democracy. It’s value noting that Bolsonaro and Moro, the Lava Jato decide–turned–safety minister, made an unusual visit to CIA headquarters throughout Bolsonaro’s first presidential journey to the US.
‘Born within the Division of Justice’
I learn Securing Democracy with deepening shock on the lack of study of US involvement in Lava Jato. I learn the e book fastidiously, and have carried out searches on the e-book since, frightened I had missed one thing. It’s not there.
Its absence is particularly stunning as a result of Greenwald has lengthy been a critic of US overseas coverage; as a result of the primary little bit of the archive that Greenwald examined concerned the US Division of Justice (p. 58), though Greenwald doesn’t comply with up on this; and since US involvement obtained passing point out on the very begin of the Vaza Jato collection.
Brasilwire (6/13/19)
The Telegram transcripts revealed within the first Vaza Jato launch by Greenwald and his colleagues on the Intercept (6/12/19) included a 2016 remark that Lava Jato’s chief prosecutor, Deltan Dallagnol, made to Moro about one thing that “relies on articulation with the People.” It isn’t exactly clear from the context what the remark means, though Moro and Dallagnol have been discussing the prosecution of Lula and different figures. This primary look of the US at first of Vaza Jato obtained evaluation on the time in Portuguese (Revista Discussion board, 6/13/19) and in English (Brasilwire, 6/13/19), however Greenwald by no means adopted up on the thread.
In Vaza Jato releases that got here after Greenwald’s involvement with the collection, however earlier than the publication of Securing Democracy, his colleagues present that US investigators from the Division of Justice and FBI met often with Lava Jato prosecutors (Intercept, 3/12/20). This group, which at occasions included at the least 17 brokers, met with Lava Jato prosecutors in Brazil for a number of years (Agência Pública, 7/1/20), and labored on circumstances together with the investigation that eliminated Lula from the 2018 presidential elections (Agência Pública, 2/12/21). These US investigators have been working in Brazil with out the authorization of the nation’s minister of justice, which is required by treaty to supervise overseas regulation enforcement in Brazil (Intercept, 3/12/20).
Previous to Vaza Jato, there had been some data of and reporting on US participation with Lava Jato (New York Instances, 12/21/16), and Lula’s protection group had filed a movement arguing that this was a violation of Brazilian regulation (ConJur, 3/16/18).
Moreover, in keeping with the hacker Delgatti, Greenwald solely accepted a small portion of the total archive that Lula’s protection group finally obtained (Brasilwire, 2/18/21). I’m undecided what to make of that declare, which I discover unusual. However I do need to flag that the Vaza Jato archive just isn’t the one supply of details about US participation in Lava Jato, and Greenwald might by no means have possessed the total archive.
Nevertheless, we all know of the extent and period of US participation in Lava Jato due to the work Greenwald’s colleagues did with the archive that he did possess. And their publications are what made US participation in Lava Jato a matter of huge public significance.
Twitter (7/1/20)
For instance, Lula responded on Twitter to the reporting by Greenwald’s colleagues with the allegation:
The aim was Petrobras [Brazil’s state-owned oil giant]. It was the Pre-Salt [Brazilian offshore oil]. And the Brazilian firms that have been successful bids from US firms within the Center East.
Lula’s declare, which he has elaborated elsewhere, is that the thought of Lava Jato was “born within the Division of Justice in america,” with the intention of destroying Brazilian opponents to US firms (in petroleum, naval development and civil engineering, all sectors focused by Lava Jato) (PT, 7/9/20). Maybe Greenwald disagrees with Lula right here. Then absolutely Lula’s declare deserves a refutation, particularly as a result of its principal evidentiary foundation is Greenwald’s personal archive.
Securing Democracy does observe that Greenwald’s work on the Snowden archive “proved that the NSA and the Authorities Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) within the UK have been spying on [Petrobras,] the state-owned oil firm whose proceeds fund Brazil’s social applications” (p. 125). However the query of overseas intervention in Brazil seems principally up to now tense in Securing Democracy, and by no means in relation to Greenwald’s personal Vaza Jato archive.
I ought to observe that I’ve not seen sufficient proof to weigh in with confidence on Lula’s assertion concerning the financial intentions of the Lava Jato group and its US collaborators, however he’s appropriate about Lava Jato’s financial results. Brazilian students have proven that Lava Jato did severe damage to Brazil’s main firms, and, consequently, to the financial system and to employment in Brazil. In distinction, many of the US monetary firms responsible for the fraud that precipitated the 2008 world monetary disaster have been protected as “too massive to fail.” Regardless of the mixture of intentions concerned, Lava Jato was a part of an asymmetrically structured world politics of corruption that disables firms from the International South and often protects these from the International North, contributing to world inequality.
From ‘inevitable’ to unmentionable
Regardless of Greenwald’s silence about US participation in what he convincingly reveals to be a regime change operation in twenty first century Brazil, Securing Democracy runs via the lengthy historical past of US regime change operations in Latin America. Discussing US assist for the 1964 coup in opposition to a center-left Brazilian authorities that was changed by a 21-year navy dictatorship, Greenwald notes that US “refusal to tolerate any type of leftism in Latin America’s largest nation—even when it meant the imposition of despotism the place democracy had been taking root—was nearly inevitable” (p. 3). Greenwald additionally mentions Brazil’s enduring “colonial relationship with america” (p. 12), and notes that he realized from Edward Snowden that Brazil has the “largest CIA presence within the hemisphere” (p. 12).
So why doesn’t Securing Democracy look at US involvement within the course of that eliminated the elected left from energy in that nation in 2016 and introduced an admirer of right-wing despotism to energy in 2018? What modified between 1964 and 2016 that made US involvement in left-to-right regime change operations in Brazil noteworthy, even “inevitable” then, however not value mentioning now?
As Greenwald acknowledges within the e book, to america, the PT governments’ forging of a “overseas coverage in a method that diverged from US dictates was insupportable” (p. 14). Luckily for the US officers who discovered the PT’s impartial overseas coverage insupportable, Lava Jato resolved this drawback for them. Upon inauguration, Bolsonaro assumed a posture of alignment with Trump’s government in issues of overseas coverage.
Le Monde (4/11/21)
Though Greenwald doesn’t look at the involvement of america in Lava Jato in Securing Democracy, this involvement has develop into politically essential in Brazil and america. (One can discover additional English-language examination of the US function, drawing on each the Vaza Jato archive and different sources, in Le Monde and Brasilwire.) Moreover Lula himself, Brazilian public figures starting from members of Brazil’s supreme court to politicians from Brazil’s so-called “big center” have been crucial of the US/Lava Jato collaboration.
Within the US, 13 congressmembers wrote a 2019 letter to then–Legal professional Normal William Barr demanding a proof for the Division of Justice’s collaboration with Lava Jato. That letter was adopted up in 2021, when 23 congressmembers despatched an analogous letter to Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland, noting that “it’s a matter of public report that US DOJ brokers supplied assist to Brazilian prosecutors that have been a part of the Lava Jato operation.”
That assertion hyperlinks to a 2017 speech by Appearing Assistant Legal professional Normal Kenneth A. Blanco, through which he exults in DoJ collaboration with Lava Jato and in Lava Jato’s conviction of Lula. The congressmembers’ letter additionally notes that members of the DoJ and FBI have been briefed by Lava Jato prosecutors in Brazil, linking to Agência Pública’s reporting (3/12/20) on the Vaza Jato archive. No trace of this seems in Securing Democracy.
I believe there may be nonetheless room for debate concerning the intentions behind US involvement in Lava Jato—a Brazilian “anti-corruption” investigation that, as Greenwald reveals, pursued goals per the historical past of US coverage in the direction of Latin America that Securing Democracy outlines. Nevertheless, I see no justification for the entire omission of US involvement in a e book that’s largely concerning the politics of Lava Jato, and that attracts on the sources from which we all know a lot of what we do concerning the US function. No matter Greenwald’s place is right here, it deserves clarification, and the failure to look at the US function in Lava Jato is a big flaw in an essential e book.
Tucker Carlson interviewing Glenn Greenwald (screenshot by way of Salon)
The Greenwald wars
I’ve no excellent idea of why Greenwald selected to omit proof, stemming from his personal “once-in-a-lifetime scoop,” that Lava Jato labored with assist from america, a few of it clandestine. Greenwald is tough to determine. He’s a former hero of the left (he spoke at FAIR’s twenty fifth anniversary profit alongside Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman and Michael Moore) who’s now an everyday and chummy visitor of Trump-favorite Fox Information host Tucker Carlson—whom Greenwald has absurdly referred to as a “socialist,” together with Steve Bannon and “the 2016 iteration of Donald Trump.” His cruel polemics in opposition to US liberalism often hit the mark, but he will be dumbfoundingly credulous when conservatives espouse “working-class, anti-imperialism, anti-corporatist politics.”
Securing Democracy was launched again in April 2021. (A Brazilian edition might be launched on the finish of April 2022.) Since then, English-language media shops have largely ignored it. I used to be despatched a assessment copy by a intellectual US publication, however they canceled the assessment earlier than I had written a phrase, as a result of (they informed me) of Greenwald’s brutal feud along with his former colleagues on the Intercept. The e book got a few reviews in non-US publications, and some from the ideological peripheries of mainstream US politics. However there isn’t a lot else. In distinction, his e book, No Place to Disguise: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the US Surveillance State, had been coated in just about each publication that critiques books of political journalism inside weeks of its publication.
Though he’s now spurned by many of the mainstream, Greenwald is aware of the best way to decide an underserved market area of interest for his polemics, and to serve that area of interest relentlessly. Maybe addressing US collaboration in Lava Jato is inconsistent with the area of interest he’s aiming for in Brazil. Or perhaps that interpretation is just too cynical.
Greenwald does have appreciable braveness, and he stays an essential critic of US overseas coverage. He’s practically alone right this moment amongst English-language journalists of main attain in his principled critiques of the deepening liberal/neoconservative embrace within the US (Glenn Greenwald, 1/25/22)—work that has develop into particularly essential as a flood of conflict propaganda (Glenn Greenwald, 2/27/22) raises the horrific peril of nuclear conflict, and as tolerance for dissent on issues of overseas coverage diminishes within the US (Glenn Greenwald, 3/15/22).
Present Affairs (6/17/21)
‘Some of the consequential reporters’
So I provide no idea of Greenwald, or of Securing Democracy’s unusual omissions. However I’ve determined to publish this belated essay as a result of the e book’s flaws (in addition to its substantial virtues) have been underacknowledged, and since Greenwald, along with his 1.8 million Twitter followers and boundless urge for food for battle, has a serious affect on how foreigners perceive Brazilian politics.
I need to make it clear that I haven’t written this assessment to argue that each evaluation of Brazil’s unhappy political trajectory over the second half of the 2010s should embrace evaluation of the function of the US on this course of. There are a lot of home elements to look at, and plenty of glorious students and journalists analyzing them.
However due to Greenwald’s affect, his perspective might be a very powerful supply from which English audio system will kind impressions about Lava Jato’s function in Brazil’s current historical past (whether or not they learn Securing Democracy or not). Greenwald had distinctive entry to the sources from which we all know a lot of what we do concerning the US function, and his silence about that function leaves a deceptive impression for the US public—the one public with any hope to have an effect on US overseas coverage.
In a critique of Greenwald, Present Affairs‘ Nathan Robinson (6/17/21) concedes that “there’s a good case to be made that for his function in releasing Lula da Silva from jail and exposing the attain of the US surveillance state, Glenn Greenwald is likely one of the most consequential reporters on the earth.” But whereas the pinnacles of Greenwald’s work have been his exposures of the Brazilian proper and US surveillance (and safety) state, which deserve excessive reward, Securing Democracy can be notable for its unusual silence concerning the connections that Greenwald’s personal sources of proof revealed between the Brazilian proper and the US safety state.
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