{"id":216813,"date":"2025-01-16T15:55:17","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T15:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/16\/as-trump-heads-to-white-house-bolsonaro-may-be-headed-to-jail-why\/"},"modified":"2025-01-16T15:55:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T15:55:18","slug":"as-trump-heads-to-white-house-bolsonaro-may-be-headed-to-jail-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/16\/as-trump-heads-to-white-house-bolsonaro-may-be-headed-to-jail-why\/","title":{"rendered":"As Trump Heads to White House, Bolsonaro May Be Headed to Jail. Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/11\/22\/multimedia\/16brazil-bolsonaro-trump-analysis-top\/16brazil-bolsonaro-trump-analysis-top-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"As Trump Heads to White House, Bolsonaro May Be Headed to Jail. Why?\" title=\"As Trump Heads to White House, Bolsonaro May Be Headed to Jail. Why?\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There is arguably no statesman who cuts such a striking political resemblance to Donald J. Trump than Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil\u2019s former president.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The two men built their brash political brands on insulting rivals, attacking the press, doubting science and vowing to unroot political elites. When they were each running for re-election, they both warned that only fraud could cause them to lose. And when each lost, they both questioned the results and helped spark attempted insurrections in their respective capitols.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since then, however, their political paths have dramatically diverged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Monday, Mr. Trump is set to return to the White House. Mr. Bolsonaro has been invited to attend the inauguration \u2014 but he will probably have to watch from home. That is because Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court confiscated his passport as part of sprawling investigations into what it says were his efforts to subvert democracy \u2014 probes that could land him in prison this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">So why have the two political matches faced such different fates for similar acts?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A key reason: Brazilian institutions have responded to Mr. Bolsonaro far differently than their U.S. counterparts responded to Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Here are three differences that have made an impact.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-b372026\">1. Bolsonaro was ruled ineligible<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Perhaps the clearest contrast: Mr. Trump was able to run for president while prosecutors pursued criminal charges against him, while Mr. Bolsonaro has been <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/06\/30\/world\/americas\/bolsonaro-brazil-banned-office.html\" title=\"\">ruled ineligible<\/a> for the next election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Six months after Mr. Bolsonaro left office in 2023, Brazil\u2019s electoral court ruled that he could not run for elected office until 2030. The seven-judge panel \u2014 made up of Supreme Court justices, federal judges and lawyers \u2014 made the ruling based on Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s attacks on Brazil\u2019s voting system during the presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the United States, no such federal electoral court exists. Voting is run by the states, and candidates can appear on a ballot just by passing a few basic thresholds, including collecting a set number of signatures and having been born in the United States. When Colorado\u2019s top court <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/19\/us\/politics\/trump-colorado-ballot-14th-amendment.html\" title=\"\">blocked Mr. Trump<\/a> from that state\u2019s ballot because of his efforts to hold on to power, the U.S. Supreme Court <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/04\/us\/politics\/trump-supreme-court-colorado-ballot.html\" title=\"\">struck down<\/a> the ruling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In other words, the Brazilian system empowers a federal court to determine who is fit for office, while the U.S. system largely leaves that decision up to voters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-1e2aaed\">2. Brazilian courts acted quickly and aggressively<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The court ruling that deemed Mr. Bolsonaro ineligible is an illustration of another divergence in the approaches: The Brazilian judiciary has been faster and far more aggressive in its pursuit of Mr. Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Just one year after Mr. Bolsonaro left office, Brazil\u2019s federal police filed formal accusations in three separate criminal cases against the former president. The police accused him of overseeing plots to sell jewelry he received as state gifts, falsifying his Covid-19 vaccination records and trying to reverse the results of the election he had lost. Mr. Bolsonaro denies that he committed any crime and says he is being politically persecuted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It took two years after Mr. Trump\u2019s election loss for the U.S. Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to lead criminal investigations into the former president. That appointment came days after Mr. Trump announced he was running again in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There are wide expectations that Mr. Bolsonaro will be criminally charged and face trial this year. As for the four indictments against Mr. Trump, he was convicted in one case but the sentencing came after his election and he was given no punishment. It appears his other three cases may never go to trial.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The two nations\u2019 Supreme Courts have played very different roles in the processes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the United States, appeals to the top court helped to delay the cases against Mr. Trump. The Supreme Court then threw some of the cases into jeopardy when it ruled that presidents were immune from prosecution for their actions carried out as president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Brazil, the Supreme Court \u2014 and, in fact, a single justice named Alexandre de Moraes \u2014 has been leading the investigations into Mr. Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Justice Moraes\u2019s position alone atop the investigations \u2014 in a role that is in some ways akin to both judge and prosecutor \u2014 has enabled the inquiries to move much faster as he ordered searches of Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s home and jailed some of the former president\u2019s allies. But it has also raised grave concerns that, in his pursuit of protecting democracy, Justice Moraes may be doing more harm than good to Brazil\u2019s institutions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cFrom a U.S. sensibility, Brazil\u2019s looks like a hyper-activist judiciary that\u2019s willing to do things that most Americans would find very problematic and many Brazilians find very problematic,\u201d said Scott Mainwaring, a Notre Dame political science professor who has studied how each country responded to its former leaders. \u201cBut the upside is that it has protected democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cOn the other hand,\u201d he added, \u201cthe U.S. judiciary was extremely slow in bringing these four Trump cases to trial.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-65e000d\">3. The Brazilian right offered tepid support<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Immediately after the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol in 2021, Republicans broadly denounced the violence and Mr. Trump for helping to spark it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But three weeks later, the Republican congressional leader, Kevin McCarthy, flew to Mar-a-Lago and took photos with Mr. Trump. The Republican Party almost universally followed suit, shifting its own politics further to the right to align with Mr. Trump&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Jan. 8, 2023, riot on the Brazilian Capitol has been met with a much clearer rebuke from the Brazilian right. Though some of Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s allies have criticized the multiyear prison sentences for many of the people who invaded Brazil\u2019s halls of power, many conservative leaders have remained critical of the Bolsonaro movement\u2019s response to losing the election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That willingness to push back is partly because Brazil has a far more fragmented political landscape: Twenty-five political parties hold seats in Congress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While the Brazilian right has not abandoned Mr. Bolsonaro, it also appears ready to move on, promoting several conservative governors as a potential candidate to challenge leftist President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva should he run for re-election next year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The differing responses from the U.S. and Brazilian right-wing movements is also a consequence of the nations\u2019 divergent judicial approaches, said Malu Gaspar, a political columnist for one of Brazil\u2019s largest newspapers, O Globo. \u201cTrump was eligible,\u201d she said. \u201cBolsonaro is already ineligible, so you talk to bankers and politicians and they say, \u2018Why rehabilitate Bolsonaro?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-60ae915d\">And yet: Bolsonaro finds hope<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s view of the situation is different: Don\u2019t count me out yet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In an interview on Tuesday, the former president said he hoped that his ineligibility ruling could be overturned, enabling him to stage a political comeback like Mr. Trump. \u201cI am certain that if I\u2019m eligible, I\u2019ll be re-elected president,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His hopes are not that far-fetched. Brazil\u2019s current president, Mr. Lula, was in prison just three years before he was elected in 2022; he became eligible to run for president again because a Supreme Court justice <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/03\/08\/world\/americas\/brazil-lula-supreme-court.html\" title=\"\">tossed out<\/a> several criminal cases against him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And two years after Mr. Trump left office \u2014 when he had his own series of encircling criminal investigations \u2014 expectations in the United States were low that he would rise again politically.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now, on Monday, Mr. Trump will become the first felon to become U.S. president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/16\/world\/americas\/trump-bolsonaro-brazil.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is arguably no statesman who cuts such a striking political resemblance to Donald J. Trump than Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil\u2019s former president. The two men built their brash political brands on insulting rivals, attacking the press, doubting science and vowing to unroot political elites. When they were each running for re-election, they both warned that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/11\/22\/multimedia\/16brazil-bolsonaro-trump-analysis-top\/16brazil-bolsonaro-trump-analysis-top-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[170965,170820,2209,2185,167111,164984,163575,30906,14190,79,9197,167210,26174,137131,88818,170964,170966,170819,52,1021,7797],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216815,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216813\/revisions\/216815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}