Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro to be placed on house arrest for the remainder of his ongoing trial.
Bolsonaro is facing legal repercussions for allegedly staging a coup to upend his 2022 election loss to current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes accused Bolsonaro, who is an ally of President Trump, of using the social media accounts of his three sons to attack the country’s Supreme Federal Court, violating court conditions.
“The covert participation of Jair Messias Bolsonaro, preparing pre-fabricated material for demonstrations and social media, clearly showed that he maintained the illegal conduct of trying to coerce the Supreme Federal Court and obstruct justice, in blatant disrespect for previously imposed precautionary measures,” Moraes wrote, according to People’s Dispatch.
Over the weekend, the embattled former leader joined demonstrations across Brazil via telephone. His lawyers argued that the words he used did not reference the court or violate standing conditions.
They said he told protestors, “good afternoon, Copacabana, good afternoon my Brazil, a hug to everyone, this is for our freedom,” according to The Associated Press.
The State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs backed Bolsonaro in a post on social platform X, condemning Moraes’s newest order.
“Putting even more restrictions on Jair Bolsonaro’s ability to defend himself in public is not a public service. Let Bolsonaro speak!” the bureau wrote.
Their statement follows Trump’s decision to impose a 50 percent tariff on Brazil and sanctioning of Moraes last week, after the president called the trial a “witch hunt.”
Despite rebukes from the Trump administration, the Brazilian justice has pressed ahead.
In his opinion Monday, Moraes alleged Bolsonaro used social media and contacted other defendants despite outlined restrictions writing that “harsher measures” were needed to dial back the former president.
“As with any precautionary measure imposed by the judiciary, restrictions on the use of social media cannot be circumvented by illicit schemes that, through ‘digital militias,’ political supporters, or other defendants, continue to propagate the same unlawful act,” the judge wrote.
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