Flávio Bolsonaro is a close Trump ally, the son of Brazil’s former president (now serving a 27-year sentence for a crime near and dear to Trump’s heart: self-coup), and the loser of Brazil’s presidential runoff last weekend. Brazil’s Supreme Court, which is investigating him for money laundering, ordered him to surrender his passports. Instead, he slipped across the border into Argentina and flew to Miami, with considerable help from the Trump administration.
The Associated Press reports:
In a circuitous journey, Bolsonaro left for Argentina on Tuesday with his wife and two daughters, then traveled to Ecuador, according to Argentina officials and flight data. The 45-year-old senator, a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, visited the White House in May, and the Trump administration approved U.S. visas for him and his family this week. ... Flávio Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brazil’s Supreme Court, accused of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. The court had ordered him to hand over his regular and diplomatic passports by noon Tuesday.
According to The New York Times, a private jet was arranged by White House communications official Jason Miller. Bolsonaro was then let into the country on Trump’s orders under “parole,” a status meant for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” not a shield from criminal prosecution. Even as Haitians and others face deportation after their temporary protected status was stripped, officials expect him to get a fast-tracked green card, like the one his brother Eduardo received in July, shortly after Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted Eduardo in absentia of coercion for lobbying the Trump administration to punish the judges in their father’s coup trial.
Safely on U.S. soil, Flávio declared himself the “leader of Brazil” and claimed, without anything resembling credible evidence, that the election was fraudulent. Trump, who has called the result “rigged,” now declines to say who won. Dozens of countries have recognized the victory of his corrupt, leftist, fiscally profligate opponent, Lula da Silva, because he is the one the Brazilian people picked from two bad options. The United States, led by a president with some experience refusing to accept election results, is not among them.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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