Steve Bannon Doubles Down on Brazil Claims as Bolsonaro Supporters Arrested

Former White House strategist to Donald Trump Steve Bannon has indicated he supports former President Jair Bolsonaro's supporters as they face arrests.

On Sunday, supporters of Bolsonaro stormed the country's Congress building in an eerily similar fashion to the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots.

This comes a week after the democratically elected left-wing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was inaugurated.

Speaking on social media platform Gettr, Bannon said: "The Brazilian people have yet to receive even one answer on the never ending questions surrounding the election.

"An election that ended in razor thin margins in a runoff...release the machines."

Similar to his speeches following the 2020 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Bannon has, without evidence, sowed doubt regarding the integrity of the Brazilian presidential election.

Speaking on his Gettr account, Bannon repeatedly posted, "Lula stole the Election...Brazilians know this." He also shared links about the attack by Bolsonaro supporters and called them "Freedom Fighters."

"The Criminal Atheistic Marxist Lula stole the Election and the Brazilians know this... now see Lula crackdown like all Communist dictators," Bannon wrote.

Not long after Bolsonaro's defeat in October 2022, Bannon also posted that the election "was stolen in broad daylight."

Authorities in Brazil have detained at least 1,200 people in the capital Brasília, in response to the actions of the demonstrators, according to a New York Times report.

Following the attack on Sunday, Brazil's justice minister, Flávio Dino, said that authorities were successful in clearing Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices.

He noted that authorities arrested around 200 people in relation to the attacks. He also highlighted that at least 40 buses brought rioters to Brasília and that the financial backers of the trips would also be tracked down and held responsible.

Taking to Twitter himself, Bolsonaro denounced the attacks and the "invasion" of public buildings.

"Peaceful demonstrations, in the form of the law, are part of democracy," Bolsonaro tweeted on Sunday, according to a Google translation.

"However, depredations and invasions of public buildings as occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, escape the rules."

While Bannon has been vocal of his approval, Donald Trump is yet to speak on the attack on Brazil's government, as some of his Republican former colleagues have done.

Despite the similarities between the attack in Brazil and that seen on Capitol Hill in 2021, Trump has not taken to his own social network, Truth Social, to praise or condemn the actions.

Instead, Trump shared articles about declining ratings on cable networks, a grievance with a New York Times reporter and Texas Republican congressman Pat Fallon discussing the issues with the country's southern border.