Eduardo Bolsonaro, Brazilian congressman and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, said on Tuesday (19) that he would seek political asylum in the United States, claiming to be the target of persecution for defending the right-wing movement embodied by his father.
Brazil’s former president’s third eldest son has been in the United States since late February, exactly when the Brazilian Supreme Court began to assess whether it would seize his passport due to accusations that he attempted to interfere in the case involving his father’s alleged role in a coup plot after losing the 2022 election.
Eduardo, 40, said in a video posted on social media that he intended to remain in the United States and step away from his role as a federal legislator. He has close ties with the Trump family and recently visited President Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his home and club in Florida.
“If Alexandre de Moraes wants to seize my passport or even imprison me so that I can no longer denounce his crimes in the United States, then it is precisely here that I will stay and work harder than ever,” he said in the video.
Eduardo’s announcement comes days before the Supreme Federal Court decides whether to put his father on trial under accusations that he oversaw a vast conspiracy to subvert the country’s democracy after the 2022 election, which he lost.
Eduardo Bolsonaro said that his father risks being “unjustly imprisoned” by the Supreme Federal Court, which has long been seen as an enemy by Brazil’s conservative movement, and drew a parallel between his father and Donald Trump’s own legal troubles.
“I have no doubt that our enemies’ plan is to incarcerate him, to kill him in prison, or to leave him there forever, just as would have happened to Donald Trump if he had not been reelected in 2024,” he said in the video.
The Attorney General’s Office of Brazil stated that it is not revoking Eduardo Bolsonaro’s passport.
Source: The New York Times