FROM WALL STREET JOURNAL: A majority of Supreme Court justices found former President Jair Bolsonaro guilty of plotting a coup to overturn the 2022 election, raising the prospect of decades in prison for the right-wing firebrand and inflaming a dispute between President Trump and the country’s current leftist leader.
Sending the 70-year-old Bolsonaro to jail would defy Trump’s efforts to derail a case that has electrified Latin America’s largest country and thrust Brazil into the center of the U.S. administration’s trade war. Trump leveled 50% tariffs on Brazilian exports because of what his administration calls a witch hunt against the former leader.
Bolsonaro is scheduled to be sentenced Friday and could be behind bars by the weekend. Because of his age, he could spend the rest of his life in prison, though there is a movement to grant amnesty to him and others involved in the Jan. 8, 2023, storming of Brazil’s Congress. He could also be released early after a near-fatal stabbing on the campaign trail in 2018 left him with health problems.
Justice Cármen Lúcia, the third judge on a five-judge panel, found Bolsonaro guilty, effectively sealing his fate. If the fifth judge acquits him, Bolsonaro can appeal to the full court, but political analysts predict a conviction. Justice Cristiano Zanin, President Lula da Silva’s personal attorney, believes Bolsonaro is guilty of attacking the state. Brazilians celebrated by honking and cheering from their windows, while authorities braced for backlash from the White House.
“The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil’s supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro. The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt,” Secretary Marco Rubio wrote on X.
The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil's supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro.
The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) September 11, 2025
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