Atlanta, United States
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that Washington was not directly involved in Flavio Bolsonaro’s arrangements to leave Brazil after his election loss.
President Donald Trump said that Bolsonaro could, however, stay in the United States “as long as he wants.”
Bolsonaro, who lost his bid to be president in Sunday’s run-off vote, arrived with his family in the US on Wednesday after a court ordered his passports to be seized amid multiple investigations against him.
“He had previously held a visa, and the president made a decision to allow him to enter the country,” Rubio told a press conference in Atlanta, Georgia, where he hosted G20 foreign ministers for a two-day meeting.
Rubio added that “the U.S. government was not involved directly” in arrangements Bolsonaro made to leave his country.
Following the vote, the 45-year-old bolted from Brazil via Argentina and Ecuador in a plane that some U.S. media, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, reported was chartered by Jason Miller, an adviser to Trump.
The plane that whisked the Bolsonaro family to the U.S. was paid for by an intermediary from a U.S. bank account, the head of the airline has told AFP.
The White House has not commented on the flight, but Trump has called the Brazilian election “disgraceful.”
Speaking to reporters at his Florida residence on Saturday, Trump said he had no plans to meet Bolsonaro but voiced sympathy for the rightist senator.
“I think he got treated very shabbily. Very shabbily, so he can stay here as long as he wants,” the president said.
A Brazilian diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Argentina’s diplomatic representative had been summoned for a “routine meeting” to “provide explanations” on the flight.
Argentina’s foreign minister later denied that Brazil had asked Buenos Aires to explain its role in the operation.
Since arriving in the U.S., Bolsonaro has claimed to be the true leader of Brazil and said that he left the country because he was a victim of “persecution.”
Flavio Bolsonaro’s father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for plotting a coup after his 2022 re-election loss.
