The US has intensified its campaign to help Jair Bolsonaro avoid punishment for allegedly masterminding a failed coup, with the state department denouncing the decision to place Brazil’s former president under house arrest.
“Let Bolsonaro speak!” the department’s bureau of western hemisphere affairs tweeted on Monday night after the far-right populist was confined to his mansion in the capital, Brasília, and police seized his mobile phone.
Alexandre de Moraes, the supreme court judge overseeing the trial, said he had taken the decision as a result of what he called Bolsonaro’s deliberate violation of a court order forbidding him from using social media or communicating with foreign diplomats. “Justice is blind but it isn’t stupid,” Moraes wrote in Monday’s order.
The Trump administration has thrown its weight behind efforts to help Bolsonaro avoid a lengthy jail sentence for allegedly plotting to seize power after he lost the 2022 election to his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Federal police claim the conspiracy included plans to assassinate Lula, his vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, and Moraes. The plot allegedly culminated on 8 January 2023, a week after Lula took power, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed congress, the supreme court and the presidential palace in what police claim was an unsuccessful attempt to start a military intervention.
But Trump has claimed his ally – who is currently being tried by the supreme court – is the victim of a politically motivated “witch-hunt” and last week slapped Magnitsky sanctions on Moraes. The US president has also announced 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports from Wednesday. “This trial should not be taking place!” Trump wrote in a letter to Lula earlier this month calling Bolsonaro’s treatment “an international disgrace”.
After Bolsonaro’s house arrest on Monday, the state department hinted that other members of Brazil’s 11-seat supreme court could soon face Magnitsky sanctions, which are normally used to punish the perpetrators of major human rights violations. “The United States condemns Moraes’ order imposing house arrest on Bolsonaro and will hold accountable all those aiding and abetting sanctioned conduct,” it said.
Trump’s attempt to interfere in Brazil’s justice system has outraged progressive Brazilians, who decry what they see as a flagrant violation of their country’s sovereignty. But the US president’s actions have exhilarated Bolsonaro’s sizeable support base, with Bolsonaristas hoping Trump’s intervention will help put pressure on congress to approve an amnesty that will ensure their leader avoids prosecution.
Bolsonaro, 70, is widely expected to be found guilty when the coup trial concludes in the coming weeks and faces spending the rest of his life in jail. He has repeatedly denied the charges but has admitted seeking “alternative” forms of remaining in power after losing the election.
On Monday night, hundreds of followers flocked to the gates of Bolsonaro’s upmarket condominium to vent their anger, some carrying US flags.
“We want Trump to help us,” said one protester, Ricardo, who wore a red Maga cap and declined to give his second name as he stood outside Bolsonaro’s compound holding up a star-spangled banner. “Our solution can no longer come from within [Brazil]. It has to come from abroad. The sanctions are working. More people need to be hit with Magnitsky.”
Close allies of the former president were also present and vowed to launch a wave of demonstrations to protest against their leader’s plight.
“What they are doing to President Bolsonaro is an outrage,” the ex-president’s brother-in-law, Eduardo Torres, said. He described Bolsonaro as “a hostage”. He added: “We will occupy [the streets] and we will bring Brazil to a standstill if that’s what we need to do to defend our freedom.”
Lenildo Mendes dos Santos Sertão, a brawny Amazonian congressman who goes by the nickname Delegado Caveira (“Police chief Skull”), said he believed Bolsonaro’s political future could still be salvaged.
“I spoke with him yesterday. He’s very shaken. Very downcast. But he’s a soldier and he is in the trenches and at the right time he will come out and we really believe that he will be our candidate in the presidential election,” Caveira said, as he marched towards the entrance to the compound Bolsonaro can no longer leave.
Another pro-Bolsonaro lawmaker, Maurício Souza, called on truck drivers, entrepreneurs and members of the agribusiness community to stage a nationwide strike against the supreme court’s “tyranny”. “Brazil is going to grind to a halt,” Souza told reporters.
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