Brazilian police raided Jair Bolsonaro’s home on Friday (July 18,2025) as a choose imposed additional restrictions on the far-right former chief whereas he stands trial on coup costs which have vexed U.S. president and ally Donald Trump.
His son Eduardo Bolsonaro, a congressman who lately moved to the United States to foyer for his father, wrote on X that federal police carried out a “raid on my father’s home this morning.”
He lashed out at Supreme Court choose Alexandre de Moraes, a Bolsonaro adversary who on Friday ordered the ex-president to put on an digital ankle bracelet, not go away his home at night time, or use social media.
Mr. Moraes, one of the judges in Bolsonaro’s trial for allegedly looking for to nullify leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s 2022 election victory, mentioned the measures had been essential given the “hostile acts” towards Brazil by the accused and his son.
This got here after Mr. Trump introduced a 50% tariff on the South American powerhouse for what he mentioned was a “witch hunt” towards his ally Bolsonaro.
Mr. Moraes, mentioned Eduardo Bolsonaro, “has long abandoned any semblance of impartiality and now operates as a political gangster in robes, using the Supreme Court as his personal weapon.”
The choose was “trying to criminalize President Trump and the US government. Powerless against them, he chose to take my father hostage,” he added in a letter he signed as a “Brazilian congressman in exile.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio introduced Friday Washington was revoking a U.S. visa for Moraes for his “political witch hunt against Jair Bolsonaro.”
‘Supreme humiliation’
Accusing him of making a “persecution and censorship complex,” Rubio additionally introduced visa restrictions on different judges who aspect with Mr. Moraes, in addition to their speedy members of the family.
Bolsonaro, 70, described the Moraes order Friday as a “supreme humiliation” and mentioned the prohibitions had been “suffocating.”
It additionally prohibited him from approaching international embassies, and confined him to his home on weekdays between 7:00 pm and 6:00 am, and all day on weekends or public holidays.
“I never thought about leaving Brazil, I never thought about going to an embassy,” Bolsonaro insisted on rising from the justice secretariat places of work in Brasilia. He had been taken there after the raid, throughout which police seized money.
His protection staff in a press release expressed “surprise and indignation” on the new measures.
The former military captain denies he was concerned in an try to wrest energy again from Lula as half of an alleged coup plot that prosecutors say failed just for an absence of navy backing.
After the plot fizzled, rioting supporters often called “Bolsonaristas” raided authorities buildings in early 2023 as they urged the navy to oust Lula. Bolsonaro was overseas on the time.
The case towards Bolsonaro carries echoes of Trump’s failed prosecution over the January 6, 2021 assaults by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol to try to reverse his election loss to Joe Biden.
Both males have claimed to be victims of political persecution, and Mr. Trump has stepped in in protection of his ally, to the anger of Lula who has labeled the tariff risk “unacceptable blackmail.”
Washington additionally introduced an investigation into “unfair trading practices” by Brazil, a transfer that might present a authorized foundation for imposing tariffs on South America’s largest economic system.
On Tuesday, prosecutors requested the trial judges of the Supreme Court to search out Bolsonaro responsible of “armed criminal association” and planning to “violently overthrow the democratic order.”
The protection should nonetheless current its closing arguments, after which a five-member panel of judges together with Moraes will resolve the ex-president’s destiny.
Bolsonaro and 7 co-accused danger as much as 40 years in jail.
He has repeatedly acknowledged his need to be a candidate in presidential elections subsequent yr, however has been dominated ineligible to carry workplace by a courtroom that discovered him responsible of spreading misinformation about Brazil’s electoral system.
Mr. Lula, for his half, mentioned on Friday he intends to hunt one other time period.
“You can be sure that I will be a candidate again… I will not hand this country over to that bunch of lunatics who almost destroyed it,” the 79-year-old mentioned at a public occasion within the state of Ceara.
Mr. Moraes has repeatedly clashed with Bolsonaro and different rightwing figures he has accused of spreading faux information.
Last yr, the choose suspended tech titan Elon Musk’s X community in Brazil for 40 days for failing to deal with the unfold of disinformation shared primarily by Bolsonaro backers
