The senator said he was told to arrange a meeting with de Moraes and get him to make compromising comments on tape about the vote’s validity and the electoral court’s neutrality that would lead to the judge’s arrest.

A Brazilian senator has said former President Jair Bolsonaro was at a meeting in December to overturn the country’s 2022 presidential election results that brought current leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva into office.

Senator Marcos do Val told a news conference on Thursday that both he and Bolsonaro were invited to a private meeting on December 9 organised by the former president’s ally and then-congressman, Daniel Silveira.

This was more than a month after Lula had won the election and three days before his presidency was formally approved. Bolsonaro narrowly lost the October vote, prompting unsubstantiated claims by his supporters of voting fraud.

Do Val in his statement said Silveira proposed a plan to discredit the recent election. He alleged that the former lawmaker asked him to get Electoral Court President and Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes to compromise himself to discredit the presidential election.

“I immediately said that I would not do that, I would not do that type of thing,” do Val said, claiming that while Silveira laid out the details of the plot during the meeting, Bolsonaro “sat in silence” and did not discourage it.

Do Val also released screenshots of his WhatsApp messages with Silveira about the meeting and the plan. He also said he ultimately did meet with de Moraes on December 14, but instead of recording the encounter, warned the judge about the plot.

De Moraes has not commented publicly. Bolsonaro’s son Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro has, however, admitted the meeting took place but denies a crime was committed.

Do Val’s comments came after Silveira was arrested on Thursday in relation to previous offences after his parliamentary immunity came to an end.

De Moraes, who is in charge of the ongoing probe on the January 8 riots, on Thursday ordered do Val to provide sworn testimony to federal police within five days as part of a Supreme Court investigation into the riots, in which Bolsonaro has been named among those potentially responsible.

The former president, who is currently in Florida after leaving Brazil at the end of December, has voiced “regret” for the unrest but denies he caused it, and neither he nor his representatives have yet commented do Val’s statements.