Mike Benz is alleging that USAID played a sweeping role in shaping Brazil’s political and institutional environment by funding media outlets, universities, legal advocates, activists, and organizations tied to the country’s courts and election system.

Benz described the arrangement as so extensive that ordinary Brazilians could move through major cities without realizing how many institutions around them had received support connected to USAID.

"What was happening in Brazil was a full-on Truman show. You had the media funded by USAID. You had the universities funded by USAID. You had the staffers of the Supreme Court and the TSE, the Election Court, USAID. You had all the constitutional law advocates funded by USAID. You had the LGBT activists funded by USAID. It's full spectrum," Benz said.

He argued that the reach of those programs extended across civic and political institutions.

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"If you were to walk down a city block in Sao Paulo or, I don't know, Brasilia, you would have you would have a 360 vision of institutions funded and puppeteered by USAID without ever knowing it," Benz said.

Benz further suggested that USAID understood the political sensitivity of those connections and questioned whether grantees had been encouraged to obscure their ties to the agency.

"In fact, USAID knowing what they were doing. Now I need to be careful about what I can and can't say here. Let's just say, would anyone be surprised, for example, if USAID was going around and telling its grantees in Brazil to remove the USAID logo so that it doesn't get out that grantee's connection to USAID?" he said.

"They knew what they were doing. They knew how sensitive it was."

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Benz said the current Brazilian election is notable because, in his telling, it is the first since the 2020 municipal elections without USAID money circulating around President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his allies.

"It is true that this is the first Brazilian election since the 2020 municipal elections in Brazil that does not have USAID money slushing around Lula and his allies, but is still an election that is in many ways under the thumb of the ghost of USAID," Benz said.

He argued that even if direct funding disappears, institutional changes created during the period of foreign support can remain.

"There is something I call kind of the clockmaker's dilemma, which is USAID. Even when you remove it, the institutional and legal changes that a country goes through can live on even if you cut USAID funding down to zero," he said.

Benz focused heavily on Brazil’s STF and TSE, the Supreme Federal Court and Superior Electoral Court, arguing that those institutions developed a broad censorship and disinformation framework after Jair Bolsonaro’s 2018 victory.

"So, for example, in Brazil, you have this apparatus through the STF and TSE, the Supreme Court and the, basically, election court that determines all things around elections," Benz said.

He said the TSE, working under Alexandre de Moraes, broadened its definition of election-related disinformation beyond campaign periods.

"And in basically, after Bolsonaro won in 2018, the TSE court with Alessandra de Morias, famous Voldemort judge, they declared disinformation a threat to free and fair elections. Not just disinformation during an election season, but disinformation any time, misinformation, disinformation any time about anything because it could pollute people's, I don't know, sense of what's true or false in the information ecosystem, and so it could have an impact on an election three years away if this false information is allowed to circulate online," Benz said.

He alleged that USAID played a direct role in establishing that environment.

"That was set up by USAID. USAID flooded the zone. USAID had contact at every level with the TSE court with the Alessandra de Morayas court," Benz said.

Benz said he testified before a Brazilian Senate committee and presented images he said showed de Moraes being trained by USAID-linked organizations.

"I testified to the Brazilian Senate Relations Committee and put pictures from USAID's website of Alessandro de Morayas being trained by SEPS, the USAID grantee, by NED, the USAID grantee," he said.

Benz also asserted that NED had received billions of dollars from USAID and had intelligence-community origins.

"Has gotten $3 billion from USAID and was created by the Central Intelligence Agency," Benz said.

He continued by claiming that several groups involved in flagging content for the TSE had received funding from USAID or the State Department.

"Every aspect, for example, I think it was four or five of the nine of the inside groups that did all the flagging at the TSE were funded by USAID or the State Department, which is the kind of co-companion," Benz said.

He described the institutional system as still active and highly influential even after funding changes.

"Everything USAID does is supposed to help some State Department interest. It the list goes on and on and on, and that institution is still weaponized to an unbelievable degree in Brazil," he said.

Benz concluded by arguing that the upcoming runoff election could determine whether that structure remains in place.

"That now finally has a chance to be crushed, to be blown to smithereens in the event of an ultimate Bolsonaro victory during the runoff election at the end of the month," Benz said.

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His broader argument is that the most consequential effects of foreign funding may outlast the funding itself, leaving behind legal, institutional and political systems that continue shaping elections and public debate long after the original programs are reduced or eliminated.

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