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Bolsonaro denied passport to attend Trump's inauguration

Once again De Moraes ruled against returning Bolsonaro his passport

Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) Justice Alexandre De Moraes deemed former President Jair Bolsonaro a flight risk and refused to return his passport, which the retired Army captain needed to attend Donald Trump's inauguration in Washington DC on Jan. 20. Bolsonaro is under investigation in various cases and had been ordered to surrender his travel document.

In a decision published Thursday, De Moraes said that the former president's recent behavior indicated the possibility of an attempt to flee Brazil. The magistrate quoted speeches by Bolsonaro and his son, Federal Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, in favor of fleeing to Argentina on Jan. 8, 2023. These statements and others published in the press were used to support the decision.

De Moraes also cited an interview given by the former president to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper in November last year, in which he “considered the possibility of escaping and requesting political asylum to avoid possible criminal liability in Brazil.”

“The scenario that led to the imposition of a ban on leaving the country, with the surrender of passports, continues to indicate the possibility of an attempt by the indicted Jair Messias Bolsonaro to evade the application of criminal law, in the same way that he has been advocating fleeing the country and [seeking] asylum abroad for the various people convicted by the Plenary of the Federal Supreme Court in cases related to this investigation and related to the 'attempted coup d'état and violent abolition of the democratic rule of law',” the magistrate noted in his rationale.

Last week, Bolsonaro's defense requested that the Supreme Court authorize the return of his passport, seized in February 2024, so that he could travel to the United States between Jan. 17 and 22 to attend Trump's inauguration. De Moraes asked for the invitation to be submitted, which did not happen.

“Therefore, there was no compliance with the decision of 11/01/2025, since no evidentiary document was attached to the case file to demonstrate the existence of an invitation made by the President-elect of the USA to the applicant Jair Messias Bolsonaro, as alleged by the defense,” the judge also pointed out.

According to the former president's legal team, the invitation had been formalized in an email sent to Eduardo Bolsonaro. But the email, according to De Moraes, was sent to an “unidentified address” and without any timetable or schedule.

In addition, Brazil's Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) Paulo Gonet, had already expressed his opposition to Bolsonaro's request because the former president had failed to demonstrate the indispensable need or public interest of the trip.

Bolsonaro had his passport seized as part of Operation Tempus Veritatis, by the Federal Police (PF), which is investigating an alleged criminal organization suspected of acting to carry out a coup d'état and abolish the democratic rule of law in Brazil.

Since then, Bolsonaro's counselors tried to get the document back on at least two occasions, but both requests were turned down by De Moraes.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)