Brazil Convicts Eduardo Bolsonaro for US Lobbying on Father’s Coup Trial
The son of the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, Eduardo Bolsonaro, has been convicted by Brazil’s highest court for attempting to secure US intervention during his father’s coup trial.
Eduardo, 41, faced charges last year after he was accused of lobbying US officials to impose tariffs or sanctions on Brazil to aid his father’s case. He relocated to the United States in 2025, just before his father—who governed from 2019 to 2022—was found guilty of plotting a military coup and sentenced to 27 years in prison.
On social media, Eduardo called the conviction "baseless and senseless," asserting that the justices wanted to stop him from running for election and that he had never been formally served, only notified through media reports.
The Supreme Court sentenced him in absentia to four years and two months in prison. He claims he was living in exile because he feared arrest if he returned to Brazil.
Eduardo publicly lobbied for support from the Trump administration, which described the case against Jair Bolsonaro as a "witch hunt." Trump had imposed a 50% tariff on Brazil in July, a move criticized by current president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as "misguided and illogical."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged Washington would respond to Bolsonaro’s conviction, and the Trump administration had sanction‑sanctioned Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes for alleged abuses. Lula warned that sanctions on de Moraes would be unacceptable interference in Brazil’s justice system, though the US later withdrew those sanctions.
Both Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump had maintained a friendly relationship during Trump’s first term, meeting at the White House in 2019, and they both faced election defeats without publicly acknowledging defeat.
Jair Bolsonaro was convicted for a plot to overturn his 2022 election defeat, linked to a broader effort to keep him in power, including the January 2023 storming of government buildings in Brasilia by his supporters.
