Bolsonaro’s Passports Cancelled, His Whereabouts Unknown
Brazilian police have cancelled the passports of the defeated candidate after he missed the 24 hours the Supreme Court gave him to surrender them, in a money-laundering investigation he denies. He has not been seen since Monday and officers are checking border crossings. Argentine authorities say they have no record of him entering their country.
What is reported tonight is far less solid than the headlines suggest, so here is the line between them. Established: the court order from a named justice, the missed deadline, the cancellation, a second investigation opened today into his campaign over alleged foreign funding, and his own words on Monday — “I never thought about leaving the country.” Not established: where he is. Three Brazilian news organisations report he is airborne to Florida with his family and may seek asylum; two Argentine ones report that he crossed into Argentina but that the aircraft never took off. They cannot all be right, none is on our approved list, and Argentina has told an approved outlet on the record that there is no entry record for him. So no flight is asserted here. Meanwhile his demand has shifted from annulling the result to disqualifying his opponent over alleged abuse of power, without evidence offered; his own party has accepted the result; and the voting extension he calls a dirty trick was requested by his own campaign as well as his rival’s.