AI Summary

Flávio Bolsonaro, the Brazilian presidential hopeful who lost Sunday’s election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, departed for the United States on Tuesday amid an intensifying domestic probe and a court order that sought to restrict his travel.

The election itself had already generated controversy. After initially rejecting the results, Bolsonaro accepted the outcome on Monday while alleging unfair tactics. He pointed to a last-minute extension of voting hours ordered by Brazil’s judiciary because of heavy rains and transportation delays—an extension both candidates had requested. Officials later reported that only about 34,300 ballots were cast after normal hours, a fraction of the 4.4 million-vote margin by which Lula prevailed. Bolsonaro also criticized a pre-election increase in a welfare stipend, which Lula’s government described as an inflation adjustment. He said he intended to challenge the results legally. U.S. President Donald Trump separately called the vote “another rigged election.”

Meanwhile, Brazilian authorities were examining Bolsonaro’s ties to a lawyer accused of laundering more than $1 billion through online gambling and trading schemes, according to court documents. A separate inquiry looked into millions of dollars he raised from a disgraced banker to finance a biopic of his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who had been convicted of attempting a coup after losing in 2022. Flávio Bolsonaro has not been charged, denies any wrongdoing, and describes the probes as political persecution.

On Monday, Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered him to surrender his passports within 24 hours. In a social-media video he said he would comply and insisted he had never planned to leave the country. The request followed a visit to his father, who remains under house arrest. Bolsonaro missed the deadline; his Brazilian travel documents were canceled. He also holds Italian citizenship.

By Tuesday, reports circulated that he had left Brazil. U.S. officials confirmed the departure and said the State Department planned to issue visas to him and his family. The move risked heightening friction with Lula, who has accused the Trump administration of meddling in Brazilian affairs. Although Washington had not formally endorsed Bolsonaro’s candidacy, the State Department under Secretary Marco Rubio had worked behind the scenes to support his position before the vote. His brother Eduardo, who received permanent U.S. residency in July and has close ties to the Trump circle, already lives in the United States.

The sudden departure left Brazilian police seeking answers and some of Bolsonaro’s allies claiming he would lead the right-wing opposition from exile. It recalled an earlier episode involving his father, who spent two days inside the Hungarian embassy in Brazil after facing coup-related charges and had reportedly considered asylum in Argentina.