Top Trump ally Jason Miller, who no longer has an official role working for former President Donald Trump but was involved with his campaigns in both 2016 and 2020, was detained and questioned by Brazilian police on Tuesday in connection to an investigation into “anti-democratic acts” in the country, reports say. Miller had been with others in the country in connection to an event put on there by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and he was placed under questioning after having apparently met with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who’s a right-winger.
Miller claimed in a statement released after apparently returning to the United States that neither he nor the individuals with whom he was traveling had been “accused of any wrongdoing.” Instead, he alleged, police said that they merely “wanted to talk.” Miller, who these days runs the pro-Trump social media platform Gettr, added that the questioning of the group in which he was traveling went on for three hours. The former top Trump adviser added in his statement that his group “informed [officers] that we had nothing to say and were eventually released to fly back to the United States.” Check out Miller’s statement below:
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) September 7, 2021
As summarized by Forbes reporter Andrew Solender based on revelations from the Brazilian news organization Metrópoles, “the order to question Miller came from Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre De Moraes, who in August opened an investigation into unproven claims by Bolsonaro that Brazil’s federal elections in 2022 will be rife with fraud.” A behavioral scientist identifying themselves on Twitter as Caroline Orr Bueno added that it’s “important to understand here that Jason Miller was detained under the order of the Supreme Court in Brazil, which is currently at war with Bolsonaro and his cronies over what looks an attempt by Bolsonaro & co. to stage a coup.”
The Supreme Court in Brazil recently ordered police to raid the homes of several Bolsonaro allies for allegedly inciting attacks against democracy — similar to the allegations that led to Jason Miller getting detained at the airport.https://t.co/wY838oPVgY
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) September 7, 2021
In other words, rather than the investigation into Bolsonaro’s Trump-style claims of election fraud providing credence to the allegations, it’s seemingly an investigation into the claims themselves as acts meant to subvert the democratic process in Brazil. As explained by Bloomberg, Bolsonaro “is currently besieged by multiple criminal investigations examining his knowledge of irregularities in the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines and efforts to pour doubt on Brazil’s electronic voting system.” Just recently, the same Brazilian Supreme Court Justice who ordered Miller’s questioning also issued search warrants targeting a slew of Bolsonaro allies for “allegedly inciting attacks against the nation’s democracy,” as also explained by Bloomberg.
