Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro take part in a motorcade to protest, after Brazil’s Supreme Court issued a house arrest order for him, in Brasilia, Brazil, August 4, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
REUTERS/Adriano Machado
Brazilian authorities placed former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is standing trial on charges of plotting a coup, under house arrest on Monday, in a move that could escalate tensions with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued the arrest order, saying in his decision that the right-wing firebrand did not comply with judicial restraining orders imposed on him last month.
Bolsonaro accused of trying to overturn Lula’s 2022 win
Bolsonaro is facing charges that he conspired with dozens of his allies to overturn his 2022 electoral loss to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Moraes also banned Bolsonaro from receiving visits, with exceptions for lawyers and people authorized by the court, and use of a cell phone either directly or through third parties. A press representative for Bolsonaro confirmed that he was placed under house arrest late afternoon on Monday and that a cell phone had been seized.
In a statement, Brazil’s federal police said it had complied with the Supreme Court’s orders for house arrest and to seize cell phones, though it did not name the target of the operation. The restrictions on Bolsonaro had been imposed over allegations that he courted the interference of Trump, who recently tied steep new tariffs on Brazilian goods to what he called a “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro, his ideological ally. The house arrest order follows over two years of investigations into Bolsonaro’s role in an election-denying movement that culminated in riots by his supporters that rocked Brasilia in January 2023. The unrest drew comparisons to the riots at the U.S. Capitol after Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020.
In contrast with the tangle of criminal cases which mostly stalled against Trump, Brazilian courts and investigators moved swiftly against Bolsonaro, threatening to end his political career and fracture his right-wing movement. Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian congressman, moved to the U.S. around the same time the former president’s trial kicked off to drum up support for his father in Washington. The younger Bolsonaro said the move had influenced Trump’s decision to impose new tariffs on Brazil.
Trump last month shared a letter he had sent to Bolsonaro. “I have seen the terrible treatment you are receiving at the hands of an unjust system turned against you,” he wrote. “This trial should end immediately!” Washington late in July hit Moraes with sanctions, accusing the judge of authorizing arbitrary pre-trial detentions and suppressing freedom of expression.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Bolsonaro’s house arrest.
However, Trump’s tactics may be backfiring in Brazil, compounding trouble for Bolsonaro and rallying public support behind Lula’s leftist government. In an interview with Reuters last month, Bolsonaro called Moraes a “dictator” and said the restrictive measures against him were acts of “cowardice.”
US condemns house arrest
The United States on Monday condemned a decision by Brazil’s Supreme Court to put former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro under house arrest ahead of his trial for an alleged coup plot.
“Justice Moraes, now a U.S.-sanctioned human rights abuser, continues to use Brazil’s institutions to silence opposition and threaten democracy,” the department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said in a post on X.
“Putting even more restrictions on Jair Bolsonaro’s ability to defend himself in public is not a public service. Let Bolsonaro speak!”
Published on August 5, 2025
