Bolsonaro fled through Argentina and Ecuador despite a court travel ban
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that the Trump administration played no role in the flight of defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro to the United States, denying reports that a White House aide arranged the private jet that carried him to Miami.
“We didn’t facilitate anything,” Rubio told reporters during the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta. “We were not involved in any of the arrangements he made in terms of leaving.”
Rubio said Bolsonaro held a valid visa and that President Donald Trump’s only involvement was allowing Bolsonaro to enter the country.
“The president made clear that if he arrived in the United States at a port of entry, that he would be paroled into the country, and he was,” Rubio told reporters.
Reporting in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal alleged that Jason Miller, a White House communications aide, arranged the private jet that took Bolsonaro to Miami.
Bolsonaro lost Sunday’s runoff election to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and fled the country days later. He arrived in Miami on Wednesday after leaving Brazil despite a court order barring him from traveling abroad.
Bolsonaro and his family left Brazil through a land border with Argentina, then entered Ecuador before flying to the United States.
The defeated candidate is under investigation on suspicion of money laundering and illegal foreign currency transactions. Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court had ordered him to surrender his passports.
Bolsonaro has refused to accept the election results, claiming without evidence that they were fraudulent.
His father, Jair Bolsonaro, who served as president of Brazil from 2019 to 2022, also refused to concede his defeat to Lula in the previous election. The elder Bolsonaro is now serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup.