Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ), the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro and the defeated candidate in Sunday's (25) presidential runoff, released a letter on Wednesday (28) from the United States in which he calls himself "the true elected president of Brazil" and thanks Argentine president Javier Milei and US president Donald Trump for helping him leave the country. The text was published by his ally Paulo Figueiredo, according to Mônica Bergamo's column in Folha de S.Paulo. Hours earlier, the senator had landed with his wife and two daughters at a private airport in Miami.
The letter caps a two-day escape operation that crossed three countries governed by Bolsonaro family allies. On Tuesday (27), the US State Department confirmed it would allow the group in and grant visas to the senator and his family, without specifying the visa type. That same night, according to Argentina's National Migration Directorate, the four crossed the border by land at 10:50 p.m. over the Tancredo Neves International Bridge near Foz do Iguaçu, then boarded a Gulfstream G400 jet in Puerto Iguazú that stopped in Guayaquil, in Daniel Noboa's Ecuador, before landing in Florida at 10:24 a.m. on Wednesday, avoiding Brazilian airspace. Trump, a family ally, again insinuated fraud in the Brazilian election, without presenting evidence, and said he approved of the senator's arrival. Milei, named in the letter as one of the facilitators, had not publicly commented as of the latest reports.
For Brazil, the self-declaration contradicts the official result. In Sunday's runoff, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) won with 51.79% of valid votes against Flávio's 48.21%, a margin of 4.4 million votes. Neither the letter nor the senator's allies have presented evidence of irregularities. The playbook resembles the one used by Jair Bolsonaro after his 2022 defeat and by Trump himself in 2020, when the stolen-election narrative preceded the storming of the US Capitol.
Court order defied and ongoing investigations
The departure defied an order by Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal, STF), who on Sunday night ordered the senator to surrender his passports. The measure was taken in an inquiry into money laundering in an alleged scheme involving companies of lawyer Willer Tomaz and betting firms. Flávio and Tomaz confirm their friendship but deny any partnership or wrongdoing. The Federal Police (Polícia Federal) cancelled his regular and diplomatic passports and gave him 24 hours to hand over documents of other nationalities, which he did not. It was an Italian passport, obtained in 2023 during Giorgia Meloni's government, that he used to leave Argentina, according to the flight plan.
Federal Police sources heard by Andreia Sadi's blog on G1 say the flight may open the way for a preventive arrest request under article 312 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The decision rests with the courts, and no request had been formalized as of publication. The senator is also under investigation over the financing of "Dark Horse", a film about the former president's life.
Reactions in Brazil
Among allies, senator-elect Deltan Dallagnol (Novo) called the departure a "political exile" and compared it to Venezuelan opposition figure Edmundo González, who left Venezuela after an arrest warrant in 2024. Senator Rogério Marinho (PL-RN), Flávio's campaign coordinator, said he was surprised by the escape and called the passport order "abuse and humiliation". On the government side, minister Guilherme Boulos called the senator a "coward", and vice-president Geraldo Alckmin described the situation as "unintelligible".
Two diplomatic questions remain open: whether the Trump administration will grant the senator any form of permanent protection, and how the episode will shape Lula's fourth-term relations with Washington and Buenos Aires, two governments ideologically close to the Bolsonaro family that now host, in transit or permanently, the leading figure of Brazil's opposition.