Flavio Bolsonaro Flees Brazil After Election Defeat; US Says Will Grant Visa

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, who lost Sunday’s presidential run-off to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has left the country for the United States, according to Reuters.

He is understood to have left after refusing to comply with a Supreme Court order to surrender his passports. A senior State Department official said Washington would grant him and his family visas, and that officials would “allow them entry into the United States.”

A REVERSAL IN 24 HOURS

The move came a day after Bolsonaro said he would stay. On Monday, he said he would remain in Brazil and lead the opposition, and his party issued a statement accepting the election result, which he lost by more than 4.4 million votes. He had also said he would comply with the court’s order and “never considered” leaving Brazil.

The deadline to hand over his regular and diplomatic passports expired at noon on Tuesday. His location, and that of his wife and two daughters, was not immediately clear.

One source close to the family said he had landed in Florida but did not say where. Media in Argentina and Brazil reported that he crossed into Argentina first, though the Argentine government said it had no record of him entering the country.

THE MONEY-LAUNDERING PROBE

In a ruling seen by Reuters, the Supreme Court said it ordered the passports seized because of the risk that he might flee Brazil and his “significant financial resources.”

Bolsonaro is being investigated over his ties to an attorney, Willer Tomaz, who is accused of laundering more than $1 billion in a sprawling fraud operation. Brazilian police say Bolsonaro had access to the bank accounts of a company that Tomaz owned. He faces at least two criminal investigations before the Supreme Court.

He has denied any wrongdoing and claims Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is leading one of the investigations, is an ally of Lula.

LULA: ‘SHAMEFUL’

Lula, speaking in Brasília, said he had just heard that Bolsonaro had left the country and called it shameful. He said Bolsonaro should have stayed in Brazil and proved his innocence. “This is what the Bolsonaro family is like,” he said. “Brazil is their second nation, the US is their first.”

Senator Rogerio Marinho, from Bolsonaro’s camp, said he was surprised because the two had talked just a day earlier about the need for Bolsonaro to lead the opposition, given the 60 million votes he received.

TRUMP’S SHADOW

Trump has publicly backed the Bolsonaro family. He has called the imprisonment of Flavio’s father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, persecution. Jair is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup.

After the vote, Trump said Brazil’s election “looked like another rigged election.” No evidence has emerged that the vote was tainted. Critics focused on a last-minute extension of polling hours, but Lula’s win was commanding and the extension was unlikely to change the result.

It is also not the first time a Bolsonaro has gone to Florida after losing power. Jair left Brazil for the state after his own election defeat.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR HIS CASE

Legal experts said that leaving could hurt him. Rodrigo Brandão, a constitutional law professor at Rio de Janeiro State University, said evidence that Bolsonaro tried to flee after learning of the court order could seriously weaken his legal position and strengthen the grounds for seeking pretrial detention.

With inputs from agencies