Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has left the country for the United States after losing Sunday’s presidential election, three sources said on Tuesday afternoon, with the US State Department due to grant him and his family entry visas.
Bolsonaro, who has yet to concede to leftist incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, left Brazil after refusing to comply with a Supreme Court order to surrender his passports.
The ruling relates to a money laundering probe in which he denies wrongdoing.
The location of Flavio, his wife and two daughters was not immediately clear. One source close to the family said Flavio had landed in Florida, but declined to say where.
“The State Department will issue visas to Flavio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States,” a senior State Department official said.
Bolsonaro’s departure threatens to deepen a rift between the two most populous nations in the Americas. Lula has accused Washington of colluding with the Bolsonaros to put them back in power, and Reuters reported ahead of Sunday’s election on a US State Department campaign to restore them to office.
Trump has previously alleged Flavio’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, was a victim of judicial persecution in Brazil.
The elder Bolsonaro also went to the United States after refusing to concede to Lula in 2022, when former US President Joe Biden was in office. He eventually returned but was later given a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after his supporters stormed government buildings in Brasilia.
Trump made no mention of Flavio Bolsonaro’s departure in comments to the press on Monday, but said the Brazilian vote “looked like another rigged election.”
