EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Imposes Travel Ban On Brazil Supreme Court Justices Persecuting Former President Bolsonaro
New action comes hours after Brazilian police raid home of the former president
When U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in May new visa restrictions on foreign officials who censor Americans online, many Brazilian elites scoffed, dismissing it as purely performative. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the powerful jurist behind Brazil’s sweeping censorship regime and the man who just banned former President Jair Bolsonaro from running again next year, reportedly told allies that Donald Trump wouldn’t follow through and that nothing would come of Rubio’s threat.
But now Rubio’s State Department has blocked entry into the United States not only to Moraes but also to his allies on the Supreme Court and their immediate family members. “Moraes has been able to rule with tyranny with no sign that anyone would oppose it,” said a Trump administration official. “This will allow that resistance within Brazil to increasingly manifest itself.”
The decision comes at a dramatic moment. A few hours ago, Brazilian police raided the home of former President Jair Bolsonaro following an order yesterday by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes that he wear an ankle monitor, halt using social media, and not speak to foreign officials.
CNN reports that Brazilian authorities have accused Bolsonaro and his son, a Congressman, of illegally working with the Trump administration to impose sanctions. President Lula told CNN his nation would put Trump on trial had Trump done in Brazil what he did on January 6 in the U.S.
When asked if the Trump administration was retaliating against Moraes for sentencing Bolsonaro, an official called the police raid “an intensification of the persecution that President Trump has called attention to” and said that “the persecution architecture is linked to the censorship architecture because they are part of the same system and the system’s leader is Moraes.”
Brazil’s elite are famously cosmopolitan and enjoy traveling to New York, Miami, San Francisco and other American cities. “Oftentimes foreign officials in question have wives who have social relationships and shopping they enjoy in the United States,” said the administration official, “and so travel bans can be effective.”