PL leader admits coup discussions but says an unexecuted plan should not be a crime

PL leader admits coup discussions but says an unexecuted plan should not be a crime
Valdemar Costa Neto, president of Brazil’s Liberal Party (PL), has acknowledged that members of Jair Bolsonaro’s government discussed a coup after Bolsonaro lost the 2022 presidential election. But Costa Neto sought to draw a line between discussion and action, arguing that an unrealized plan should not itself be treated as a crime.

“They discussed staging a coup, but they did not stage a coup. So what?” Costa Neto said in an interview with Rádio Gaúcha. Asked whether there had been planning, he answered: “No doubt. How many plans do you make, then see they are wrong and stop halfway through?”

That framing contrasts sharply with the account outlined by investigators and cited in reports on the case. Federal Police inquiries identified the so-called Green and Yellow Dagger plan, which investigators said was prepared at the presidential palace and included alleged plans to kill President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Moraes said in his vote to convict those involved that the document had not been produced “in a cave” or hidden terrorist room, but “at the Planalto Palace, the seat of the Brazilian government.”

Costa Neto also backed amnesty for people convicted over the alleged coup attempt and the January 8, 2023 attacks on government buildings. He said the party wanted to free military personnel he described as unjustly imprisoned, and compared coup planning with planning a murder that is neither attempted nor carried out.

When asked whether a comparable effort could emerge under a possible future administration led by Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, Costa Neto initially replied, “I don’t know,” before saying the consequences faced by Jair Bolsonaro should deter anyone from trying. His position therefore combines an admission that discussions occurred with an insistence that they were not criminal because they did not succeed — an interpretation at odds with the investigation’s portrayal of a detailed operation intended to overturn the election result.

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