“They’re trying to humiliate me…paint me as the world’s worst criminal,” said Bolsonaro of Brazil’s left in an interview this week with The Wall Street Journal, dressed in a red tie that he said was a tribute to Trump and the Republicans. “The persecution is relentless.”

Bolsonaro’s lawyers filed a petition last week with Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to allow the former president to attend Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington, D.C. The request has so far been denied.

Police accused Bolsonaro and 36 of his allies in November of plotting to seize power after he lost the presidential vote against da Silva in October 2022, detailing the accusation in a near-900 page report that reads like a crime thriller.

Bolsonaro, who has lobbied for changes to the country’s electronic voting system for more than a decade, said he believes the 2022 vote was stolen. His government was studying options within the constitution to prevent da Silva from wrongfully taking power, he said, adding that he left office peacefully, spending the last few days of his term in Orlando.

“It borders on the ridiculous…has anyone heard of someone trying to stage a coup d’état from Disney?” he said in the interview at his party’s headquarters in the capital, Brasília.  

Bolsonaro has been banned from running for office until 2030 as part of the allegations against him, but he told the Journal last year he believed Trump could help him return to power, possibly by leveling economic sanctions against da Silva’s government.

Sharing similar views on the culture wars, guns and the political left, Bolsonaro and Trump deepened ties when their presidencies overlapped in 2019 and 2020. Like Trump, Bolsonaro suffered an assassination attempt on the campaign trail in 2018, and has faced a series of criminal allegations, including accusations he embezzled jewelry and faked his Covid vaccination records. He denies wrongdoing in all cases.

People close to the incoming Trump administration say the court’s refusal so far to allow Bolsonaro to travel to the U.S. risks hurting the Trump team’s already fragile relations with Brazil’s leftist government. Trump officials also draw parallels with what the president-elect has said is also a witch hunt by U.S. federal and state courts against him.

“The worst way the Lula government could initiate its relationship with the Trump administration is to weaponize their government against their political opponent,” said one person close to the incoming administration, describing weaponization as the use of government powers to eliminate rivals. “Donald Trump knows exactly how that feels.”

Trump is open to using trade tariffs to pressure Brazil and other countries he sees as practicing some kind of leftist lawfare—using courts to take down opponents, said people close to the incoming administration.

De Moraes, the Supreme Court justice, turned down Bolsonaro’s initial request to go to the inauguration at the weekend, asking him to provide further proof that he had actually been invited. The Trump inauguration team sent Bolsonaro’s English-speaking son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, the invite over email, but de Moraes said it didn’t contain the event’s time.

The Trump inauguration team confirmed to the Journal that Bolsonaro has been invited. Da Silva wasn’t invited, according to people close to his government.  

Political scientists said da Silva is damned if he lets Bolsonaro go, and damned if he doesn’t, adding that Brazil’s Supreme Court may seek to delay a decision until it is too late.

Allowing Bolsonaro to travel could be seen as an implicit acknowledgment by the court of weaknesses in the case against him, in which the former army captain is also accused of being complicit in plans to assassinate his adversaries, they said.

Police said they believe Bolsonaro knew about an alleged military operation led by a retired general in his government to kill da Silva, da Silva’s now vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, and de Moraes in late 2022. The plan, which police said was printed out at the presidential palace and dubbed “Green and Yellow Dagger” in reference to Brazil’s national colors, listed possible methods from poisoning the men to blowing them up with grenades, according to the police report.

Bolsonaro said in the interview he had no knowledge of the document, dismissing the plans as absurd. He added that it wasn’t a crime to want somebody dead anyway. “Damn, just think about all the people who have said they want Trump dead!” Some legal experts disagree.

Stopping Bolsonaro from attending Trump’s inauguration risks deepening opposition to da Silva’s government among the country’s business leaders, said Leonardo Barreto, a Brasília-based political analyst.

“You’re getting off on the wrong foot with a country that is fundamental to Brazil,” he said of the U.S., Brazil’s second-biggest trading partner after China. 

Da Silva’s relationship with the incoming Trump administration is already on shaky ground, largely as a result of recent moves by Justice de Moraes who has played an outsize role in Brazilian politics.

Tasked with leading a probe into anti-democratic acts in Brazil, de Moraes shut down the X platform from the end of August to early October last year over allegations it was spreading hate speech, sparking a bitter fight with its owner Elon Musk.

Musk, who Trump later appointed to his incoming administration, likened de Moraes to a dictator, while da Silva’s leftist Workers’ Party accused the billionaire of threatening Brazil’s sovereignty. De Moraes has also raised warnings this month over Meta’s move to loosen curbs on hate speech, putting Brazil and da Silva at the forefront of global opposition to the plans.

The Wall Street Journal