A Brazilian Supreme Court judge who is presiding over a case in which former President Jair Bolsonaro is being charged with coup d’etat is the target of a last-ditch lobbying effort by the country’s left-wing administration to prevent the United States from putting sanctions on him.
Brazilian authorities worry that the possibility of financial and visa restrictions may put the two most populous countries in the Americas on a collision course, despite US Secretary of State Marco Rubio‘s statement last week that Washington was considering punishment against top judge Alexandre de Moraes.
“We are working to prevent the blood from flowing into the river.”
A government official commented that Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira is leading the diplomatic effort. He noted that the pressure from major tech companies, which are facing restrictions from Brazil’s highest court, seems to be influencing the debate against the court’s decisions in Washington.
Another said that Brazil’s embassy in Washington was attempting to clarify our interpretation of the facts by claiming that democracy and freedom of speech were secure in Brazil. The US administration is becoming more receptive to claims made by Bolsonaro’s family and conservative Brazilians that former president Jair Bolsonaro, a supporter of Donald Trump, is being persecuted for his political views and that free expression in Brazil is in danger.
Rubio’s remarks came after a lobbying campaign in the US by Bolsonaro’s congressman son Eduardo.
“I would estimate there is an 85 per cent likelihood of sanctions against Alexandre de Moraes,”
Eduardo informed the Financial Times in Washington.
“If I had to wager my house on it, I would… ” would.”
Further intensifying the controversy, de Moraes started a criminal investigation into Eduardo on Monday in response to a request from the attorney general’s office to look into claims of attempts to subvert the rule of law and obstruction of justice.
Before the most recent election in 2022, De Moraes began a campaign against false news, which led to him clashing with Elon Musk, the owner of X and a Trump supporter. De Moraes unfairly singles out conservatives, according to Musk and other supporters of Bolsonaro, a hard-right former army captain who led from 2019 to 2022.
They believe that the US sanctions would compel Brazil’s top court to make concessions. This year, de Moraes was sued in Florida by the video-sharing website Rumble and the US president’s Trump Media & Technology Group, who claimed that he had engaged in “extraterritorial censorship” by directing the suspension of a Brazilian national’s account while he was in the US. Boies Schiller Flexner partner Martin De Luca, who worked on the case, charged Moraes with attempting to “to access through inconspicuous methods by consistently issuing covert court orders to US companies and focusing on American citizens while evading the US administration”.
During a visit to Brazil this month, Ricardo Pita, a top Latin America advisor for the US State Department, shocked authorities by visiting Jair Bolsonaro at his residence. Pita was part of a delegation that came to Brasília to discuss combating organised crime, according to the U.S. embassy there. Regarding possible fines, the State Department chose not to comment. Although he denies any involvement, Bolsonaro, 70, is on trial for allegedly planning a military-backed coup to stay in office. Due to campaign offences, he has been prohibited from seeking public office until 2030.
