Former Brazilian far right president Bolsonaro was sentenced to more than 27 years behind bars for trying to overthrow the election by using the military to attempt a coup d'é·tat after he lost in 2022.
Trump had threaten Brazil with huge tariffs if they continued to prosecute his far-right Brazilian ally, but his attempts at bullying them failed.
Good for Brazil.
Justices Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha and Cristiano Zanin ruled on Thursday that Bolsonaro – a former paratrooper who was elected president in 2018 – was guilty of seeking to forcibly cling to power after losing the 2022 election, meaning four of the five judges involved in the trial had found Brazil’s former leader guilty.
Announcing Bolsonaro’s sentence for crimes including coup d’etat and violently attempting to abolish Brazil’s democracy on Thursday night, the supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes said: “[He tried to] annihilate the essential pillars of the democratic rule-of-law state … the greatest consequence [of which] … would have been the return of dictatorship to Brazil.”
Delivering her decisive vote, Rocha denounced what she called an attempt to “sow the malignant seed of anti-democracy” in Brazil – but celebrated how the country’s institutions had survived and were fighting back.
I imagine Bolsonaro took his cues (to try and overthrow the election with a military coup) from Trump, who attempted the same thing in 2020 when he helped foment an insurrection at the US Capitol.
It's unfortunate in the United States that we have mealy-mouthed Republicans in Congress refusing to uphold the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.
