Brazilian Supreme Court orders probe into foreign financing of Flávio Bolsonaro's campaign

On Tuesday, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino ordered the Federal Police to investigate suspected foreign financing of Flávio Bolsonaro's presidential campaign. The order arrived in the same week that the State Department confirmed US visas for the defeated candidate, whose plane touched down in Florida on Wednesday morning.

The ruling runs to 38 pages and keeps the inquiry under the Supreme Court's direct supervision, because members of Congress may be involved and their immunity can only be overridden by the nation's highest court. According to Truthout, its central focus is the Rockbridge Network, a US organization founded with the involvement of Vice President J.D. Vance, along with the Brazilian businessmen Tallis Gomes and Pedro Sang. Police must establish whether money, services or other economic benefits were intended to help the campaign, who brokered the contacts between the American organization and the businessmen, and what was offered in return.

Dino directed investigators to look for "concrete evidence linking the discussions over political financing to the reported economic interests in Brazilian rare earths and critical minerals." The minerals are strategic for technology, energy and defence, and under Brazil's 1988 Constitution they belong to the federal government, with extraction requiring public authorization or concession. Where rural land is concerned, police must also determine whether restrictions on foreign ownership were circumvented through intermediaries.

A second thread concerns the campaign's online promotion. Foreign accounts with no history of covering Brazilian politics began running paid posts favourable to Bolsonaro's candidacy, citing projections from Polymarket, a prediction market barred from operating in Brazil. The suspicions first reached the electoral courts through a complaint by Renan Santos, at the time a presidential candidate for the Missão party; the Workers' Party later brought its own information to the Supreme Court, and Dino noted the two overlap. He also ordered an examination of what he called "intentional asymmetries" in the role technology companies played during the campaign.

The family's channel to Washington is already on the record. El País reports that Eduardo Bolsonaro, now settled in Texas, told Reuters he had asked for US sanctions against Justice Alexandre de Moraes and his family — and in 2025 Trump imposed them, along with 50 percent tariffs on some Brazilian exports, before easing both later that year. The same Federal Police is meanwhile investigating the logistics of the senator's departure for Miami.

Dino placed the financing inquiry in the Supreme Court because sitting members of Congress may be implicated. Flávio Bolsonaro's term in the Senate expires at the end of the year.