On Friday, the United States reversed its previous decision to add Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to its list of penalties due to his involvement in presiding over the prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
According to records from the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control, which manages and enforces US sanctions programs, De Moraes’ wife and the Lex Institute, which she founded, were also removed off the list.
Following a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over the weekend, the Brazilian government applauded the decision, according to Bloomberg.
Why did the couple get sanctions?
The Trump administration had sanctioned the judge in July, claiming that he had abused his authority to restrict freedom of speech in Brazil and permit arbitrary pretrial detentions.
According to a senior Trump administration official, the sanctions were lifted because the US saw Brazil’s lower house passing a major amnesty package as an indication that “lawfare” circumstances there are becoming better.
The action, which follows many meetings and phone conversations that both sides have characterized favorably, represents a preliminary softening of the formerly tense relationship between the two countries. Jair Bolsonaro, Lula’s predecessor, even earned the moniker “Trump of the Tropics” when he assumed government because Trump saw Bolsonaro as an ally.
What charges did Jair Bolsonaro face?
Despite losing the 2022 election to current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian leader was supposedly the architect of a scheme to maintain his position of authority. Trump had previously faced similar accusations in 2021 when a crowd of supporters invaded the US Capitol in an effort to block Democrat Joe Biden from capturing the White House.
Bolsonaro was thus found guilty and given a sentence of more than 27 years in jail. The troubled 70-year-old started serving his sentence last month, but because of his failing health, he is still requesting to be put under home arrest.
According to Bloomberg, the major political upheaval that his supporters had anticipated after his imprisonment never happened, but he continues to have a tremendous impact as the elections of next year get near.
The Brazilian government is against easing the sanctions
However, Bolsonaro and his family suffered a “major loss” as a result of the US decision to withdraw the sanctions, according to Brazil’s present administration.
Gleisi Hoffmann, Brazil’s secretary of institutional relations, said that President Lula placed the sanctions’ repeal on Donald Trump’s desk via “dignifying and sovereign discussion.”
He said, “It is a huge setback for the family of Jair Bolsonaro, traitors who have plotted against Brazil and the courts.”
Eduardo Bolsonaro, a congressman and the previous president’s son, has long been accused by Lula’s left-leaning government of deceiving Trump about de Moraes and other Supreme Court Justices. Eduardo Bolsonaro, on the other hand, said that he learned that de Moraes’ penalties had been revoked “with sadness.”
The younger Bolsonaro said he would keep fighting for Jair Bolsonaro after declaring in March that he would go to the United States to urge the Trump administration to keep his father out of prison.
According to Bloomberg, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, a statute designed to punish corrupt officials and human rights abusers, was the basis for the US’s first sanctions against de Moraes.
