Brazil's top court rejects Bolsonaro's bid to attend Trump's inauguration

Brazil's Supreme Court on Friday rejected former President Jair Bolsonaro's appeal for it to reconsider a previous decision barring him from traveling to the U.S. to attend the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Bolsonaro's lawyers had filed an appeal late on Thursday claiming the right-wing politician had fully complied with and respected the precautionary measures imposed on him by the Supreme Court, and also rejected any possibility of him fleeing.

But Justice Alexandre de Moraes hours later upheld an earlier ruling rejecting the former president's request to have his passport returned, a document seen by Reuters showed.

Bolsonaro, who has been barred from running for office until 2030 and faces criminal charges for allegedly plotting a coup after his 2022 election defeat, had his passport taken in February 2024 on the order of Brazil's top court.

Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil from 2019 to 2022 and has been called "Trump of the Tropics," said last week on X that he had been invited to Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration and was seeking to obtain the return of his passport.

Legal experts had previously said Brazil's courts were unlikely to grant Bolsonaro's request, as there were several ongoing investigations and cases against him that led to the retention of his passport to avoid him potentially fleeing the South American country.

In his decision on Thursday, Justice Alexandre de Moraes wrote that Bolsonaro said in a November 2024 interview that he "considered the possibility of escaping and requesting political asylum to avoid possible criminal liability in Brazil."

The former president, who denies any wrongdoing, in an interview with local news outlet UOL said that "those who see themselves as persecuted can go to an embassy."