Rubio says US did not facilitate Flávio Bolsonaro's move to the United States

The State Department had said Bolsonaro and his family would receive US visas

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that the Trump administration did not facilitate defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro’s departure to the United States following his election loss to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Rubio made the remarks to reporters in Atlanta, where top diplomats from the Group of 20 largest world economies were gathered.

Bolsonaro arrived in Miami on Wednesday, one day after the State Department said that he and his family would be granted U.S. visas. The department’s announcement came after his weekend loss in a hotly contested race that bucked a trend of conservative electoral results in Latin America.

“We didn’t facilitate anything,” Rubio said. “We had word that he had arrived in the United States. He had previously held a visa, and the president made a decision to allow him to enter the country.” Rubio added that the U.S. government was not “involved directly in any of the moves that were made.”

Rubio said he had seen Brazil’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, in Atlanta on both Friday and Saturday, and that he expected to see Brazilian officials again in France in November, when France is hosting a foreign ministers’ meeting.

Bolsonaro has refused to concede the election and has called the elections fraudulent, without providing evidence.

His father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, also refused to acknowledge his 2022 loss to Lula. The elder Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup.

The younger Bolsonaro had President Donald Trump’s tacit support in the election. He is under investigation in Brazil for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion, and had been ordered to surrender his passport after police deemed him a flight risk.

The senator from Rio de Janeiro will lose his seat when Brazil’s new legislature begins on Feb. 1. In a livestream on Instagram on Friday, he repeated his claim that he is a victim of persecution.

In a letter on Wednesday, the 45-year-old declared himself the “true president-elect of Brazil” — a term he later softened to “leader.” He compared himself, among other figures, to Charles de Gaulle, who led the French resistance to the Nazi occupation of France from London during World War II.