Inside Bolsonarists’ Campaign to Impose US Sanctions on Brazilian Judges

By Alice Maciel, Laura Scofield, and Maria Martha Bruno, reporters at the Brazilian outlet Agência Pública. Cross posted from OpenDemocracy. 

The son of Brazil’s ex-president Jair Bolsonaro and the grandson of a former Brazilian dictator are lobbying the US government to sanction Brazilian Supreme Court justices who have accused Bolsonaro of leading an attempted coup in 2022.

“I open the door, I’m the heart, but you’re the brain,” Eduardo Bolsonaro, the former president’s third son, told businessman and journalist Paulo Figueiredo in a YouTube video discussing their campaign against the justices. Figueiredo’s grandfather, João Figueiredo, led Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1979 to 1985.

“You, Paulo, have contributed a lot,” continued Eduardo Bolsonaro, himself a deputy in Brazil’s lower parliamentary chamber, in the video, which was published on Figueiredo’s YouTube channel on 27 May.

Both men have been vocal in their demands for the US to impose sanctions on Brazil’s Supreme Court justices. The court this week questioned former president Bolsonaro, who was in office from 2019 to 2023 and has been accused of leading an armed conspiracy to seize power and overturn the 2022 presidential election, which he lost.

A violent mob of Bolsonaro followers invaded and looted government buildings in Brasilia, the country’s capital, on 8 January 2023, in events that mirrored the 6 January 2021 riot on the US Capitol after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

The prosecutor’s office alleges that the failed plot involved plans to assassinate or arrest the president-elect, leftist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is now leading the trial against Bolsonaro. As with the US riot, the revolt in Brasilia was preceded by months of disinformation and fake news allegedly spread by Bolsonaro and his closest allies, which sought to cast doubt over the integrity of the vote and the electoral authorities.

Bolsonaro was cross-examined by the prosecutor and magistrates, including Moraes, for two hours at this week’s hearing in Brazil’s federal Supreme Court. He denied any involvement in a coup plot and justified his claims of vote fraud and threats to electoral authorities, putting both down to his rhetoric and temperament.

Seven other alleged co-conspirators are on trial alongside the former president, including four former ministers, Army generals and the ex-commander of the Navy. More than 30 people have so far been indicted for their role in the alleged coup, including Figueiredo, for whom the prosecutor office has issued an arrest warrant.

Figueiredo, who in 2014 briefly partnered with Trump on the construction of a luxury hotel in Rio de Janeiro city and has been living in the US in recent years, is also under investigation for spreading fake news about the 2022 election result. He has denied any wrongdoing and has described the indictment as “part of an intimidation campaign […] to silence me and my efforts to raise awareness in the American public and government about Brazil’s ongoing descent into dictatorship”.

On 26 May, the Supreme Court opened an inquiry into alleged coercion and obstruction of justice by Eduardo Bolsonaro after the prosecutor’s office requested it do so, accusing him of trying to interfere in the criminal proceedings against his father and “disturbing the technical work” of the fake news investigation. Eduardo has denied all allegations and says the investigation proves that “Brazil is not a democracy anymore”.

The opening of the inquiry comes two months after Eduardo Bolsonaro took leave from his role as federal deputy for the state of São Paulo and announced that he would seek asylum in the US. At the time, he said he was being targeted by Moraes, whom he accused of wanting to seize his passport as part of the investigation into the alleged coup attempt. Moraes denied a plan to confiscate his passport.

Both Bolsonaro and Figueiredo now appear to be using their influence in Washington to push for the US government to issue sanctions against Moraes for pursuing cases against them and Bolsonaro. In a video posted on his YouTube channel in March 2024, Figueiredo said he had begun visiting the US Congress “in search of support” soon after Jair Bolsonaro lost the 2022 presidential election.

The two men’s efforts so far seem to be working, raising serious questions about the US’s power to undermine democracy around the world. Days before an investigation was opened into Eduardo Bolsonaro, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said there is a “great possibility” that the US would seek to sanction Moraes – a move that would set a dangerous precedent for punishing members of foreign judiciaries who try to hold allies of Trump and other Republicans to account.

A Key Meeting in the US Congress

During a hearing in the US Congress on 21 May, Republican representative Cory Mills asked Rubio: “Would you consider sanctioning supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes under the Magnitsky Act?” The US law allows economic sanctions and travel restrictions to be imposed on foreign individuals involved in human rights abuses or corruption.

Rubio responded: “That [sanction] is under review now, and it’s a great possibility that will happen.”

One week before the exchange, Mills had met with Figueiredo, Bolsonaro and the president of the Brazilian lower house’s foreign relations committee, Filipe Barros, in Washington. “This interaction yields results in the real world, it’s not just word of mouth,” Eduardo Bolsonaro said in a video recorded with Figueiredo after the meeting.

Eduardo told viewers that Mills, who chairs the international relations intelligence subcommittee, is very close to Rubio, saying: “It won’t be long before he has meetings, including with secretary of state Marco Rubio.”

Figueiredo added: “I was really impressed because it was a highly objective meeting. [Mills] is a congressman familiar with the situation in Brazil, which shows that all this ant work, knocking on doors, is already bearing fruits.

Asked by Agência Pública how a US move against the Brazilian judiciary would impact the cases opened against him in Brazil, Figueiredo said: “There is no impact, as I’m not being accountable for anything. I haven’t yet been formally summoned in any lawsuit and I’ve only heard about the charges from the press, which is evidence there’s no due process.

“I have resided legally and conducted my businesses in the United States for more than ten years, at an address known to the Brazilian authorities, and I am awaiting summons in accordance with international agreements in force. The repeated violation of the US jurisdiction by Alexandre de Moraes, with illegal orders against citizens protected by it, is precisely one of the grounds for our actions for international sanctions.”

On 28 May, two days after he told Congress that sanctions against Moraes were being considered, Rubio announced a new visa restriction policy that could prevent members of foreign judiciaries who issue arrest warrants against US residents from travelling to the US.

In his official statement about the policy, Rubio said: “Today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign nationals responsible for censoring protected expression in the US. It is unacceptable for foreign authorities to issue or threaten to issue arrest warrants against US citizens or residents for social media posts made on US platforms while they are physically present on US soil.”

Together in the US Against Brazil

Just hours after Rubio mentioned the possibility of sanctioning Moraes, Brazilian congressman Filipe Barros, an ally of former president Bolsonaro, suggested on social media that the comments had been the result of Bolsonarists’ lobbying.

But in an interview with Agência Pública, Barros said he was “convinced” that Rubio’s speech was prompted by the impact that Moraes’ decisions were having on US citizens and companies. “It’s not a reaction to the 8 January process,” he said. “It’s a reaction to the committed violations by justice Alexandre de Moraes against the rights of US citizens and companies.”

In August last year, Moraes ordered a freeze on the bank accounts of Starlink and X, companies owned by right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, after X failed to pay fines issued over its non-compliance with previous Brazilian court rulings. He also banned X in Brazil for six weeks due to the firm rejecting court orders to remove users spreading misinformation and failing to name a legal representative in Brazil, which is legally required. The accounts were unfrozen and X was allowed to continue operating in the country after it agreed to pay $3.3m.

Barros said that in meetings with Mills and Republican representative Brian Mast to discuss “the political context as a whole”, he realised “their concern about US jurisdiction”.

Barros, along with a delegation of Brazilian members of the Free Market Parliamentary Front, met with executive officers from SpaceX, another company owned by Musk, in the US in early May. A source who attended the meeting and requested anonymity told Agência Pública that the US attendees were “very angry because the Supreme Court has touched their pockets and they are not going to let it go. That was the mood at the meeting.”

They added that while Eduardo Bolsonaro and Figueiredo have some influence in Washington, “the American government’s main dispute is, in fact, in defence of the Big Tech [firms] affected by justice Moraes’ decisions”.

In an exchange with Musk on X in February, Figueiredo suggested that the Magnitsky Act could be applied against Moraes, with the tech billionaire replying: “Interesting”

Olavo de Carvalho’s Heir

The use of US law to punish Moraes echoes an idea first presented by Brazilian far-right journalist and ideologue Olavo de Carvalho, who died in 2022. Back on 26 August 2020, Olavo wrote on X (then Twitter): “The Magnitsky Act is the greatest or only hope for a Brazil free of commies.”

Just over four years later, Figueiredo said in one of his YouTube channel’s videos that he was “absolutely delighted to follow up on professor Olavo de Carvalho’s ideas”, adding: “Do you think Olavo is dead? Olavo didn’t die, Olavo lives on through us.”

Like Carvalho, Figueiredo first gained visibility working in the mainstream media. While Carvalho began his career by writing columns for major newspapers such as Folha de S. Paulo, Figueiredo spent years at the far-right radio station, Jovem Pan – which the prosecutor’s indictment accuses him of using (alongside his social media accounts) to put pressure on Brazil’s army commander-in-chief to join the coup. Today, Figueiredo hosts a YouTube show to discuss politics.

There are many other similarities between the two men. Carvalho lived in the US for 17 years; Figueiredo has been there since 2016. Carvalho once ran online courses on astrology and philosophy; Figueiredo now offers an online course on politics and history aligned with far-right ideas, which he reportedly offered in person to seven Bolsonarist legislators on the eve of Trump’s inauguration last January.

Back in March 2021, Carvalho praised Figueiredo on X. “Congratulations to Paulo Figueiredo for his course ‘The End of America’. This commentator is someone who increasingly deserves to be listened to carefully,” he wrote.