MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil's TCU says Bolsonaro kept pricy gifts for himself

No grounds were identified to justify the distribution of the items between those public and those owned privately by Bolsonaro

Brazil's Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) Friday said former President Jair Bolsonaro kept for himself some 17 gifts of “high commercial value” which should have been handed over to the country's coffers. The TCU also underlined that among the more than 9,000 presents received by the former head of state, 128 of them were not of a “personal” nature and belong in the public collection.

According to the TCU report penned by Justice Augusto Nardes, 111 gifts do not fit the profile of “very personal items” and should therefore not stay with Bolsonaro or his family.

“Of the 240 gifts from foreign authorities incorporated into the private assets, it was identified that 111 do not have the characteristic of being of a very personal nature or of direct consumption of the President of the Republic, so they should have been incorporated into the Union's assets,” the TCU document went.

”In addition, no grounds were identified to justify the distribution of the items between the public collections (Union property) and the private documentary collections of the former president. It was also found that there were gifts received by the former president that were not registered. These findings are the result of deficiencies in the work process related to the receipt and incorporation of these assets,” it further read.

Fabio Wajngarten, one of Bolsonaro's lawyers, said via X (formerly Twitter) that the former president “never had any interference in the classification of gifts” and that this task was the responsibility of the Deputy Office of Historical Documentation (GADH).

The TCU experts found a total of 9,158 gifts of different provenance received by Bolsonaro during his four years of presidency. Of that number, 295 came from foreign authorities, of which 240 were incorporated into the private collection of the former president and 55 into federal assets.

Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) is also investigating the alleged misappropriation by Bolsonaro of Saudi jewelry which he reportedly sold in the United States.