Have you heard about ex-Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro’s aborted attempt to evade criminal charges by slipping into Hungary’s embassy, possibly en route to an unmolested air route to Budapest? According to a heavily documented story in Monday’s New York Times, the disgraced wannabe strongman, the subject of multiple criminal investigations, slipped into Hungary’s embassy in Brasilia on the night of February 12, four days after authorities confiscated his passport. Accused of plotting a coup to overthrow the government in 2022, Bolsonaro holed up in the embassy until the afternoon of February 14.
Bolsonaro’s lawyer said there was nothing nefarious about the three-night stay: He merely wanted to talk politics with like-minded ultra conservative Hungarian officials. “Any other interpretations are clearly fictional works. In practice, just another piece of fake news,” the advogado said in a statement.
Bolsonaro and his one time Hungarian counterpart in the practice of “illiberal democracy,” Viktor Orban, long had a theatrical romance. News that Bolsonaro would well want to pursue asylum possibilities in Hungary is as understandable as it is sensational. He faces a wide variety of accusations, ranging from a coup plot to a scheme to sell jewelry he received as state gifts, to falsifying his Covid vaccination record to gain entrance into the United States. Along the way, his hardball tactics and incendiary rhetoric against opponents earned him the sobriquet, “Trump of the Tropics.” In 2019, Trump returned the favor, saying he favored NATO membership for Brazil. Now Trump is the Bolsonaro of the North.
Viktor Orban apparently decided he’d had quite enough of Bolsonaro once he left office, however—especially with so much dumpster smoke hovering over his head. Good relations with Brazil are more important to Orban than granting asylum to the noisy has-been.
Likewise, Orban may be a Trump fan, but not to the extent that he’s going to risk rupturing relations with Washington by taking him in. But Trump may well be pondering his alternatives as he wakes up to the prospect of prison should the juries in four separate trials find him guilty on the most serious of the 91 counts facing him, including, like Bolsonaro, plotting to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021. One option is to run.
After all, it’s hard to imagine Trump submitting to handcuffs and a prison jumpsuit should any of those trials look to go sideways on him. Bolsonaro’s escapade should be taken not only as an object lesson on what Trump might be inspired to do, and what U.S. authorities should prepare for.
Surveillance cameras caught Bolosonaro entering the Hungarian Embassy in Brasilia. (via New York Times)
Who would take him? Vladimir Putin would seem to be his only option. Certainly neither China nor Saudi Arabia would see little advantage in welcoming, much less helping Trump escape his criminal and financial liabilities, at a cost of rupturing relations with Washington. Putin would wisely treat him like an oligarch, while cordoning him off from all but other disgraced exiles, like Ed Snowden.
North Korea? It’s possible a desperate Trump would find that attractive—but only if Kim promises Trump a slice of slice of desolate beachfront to build a gaudy new golf course. There, dining alone in the splendor of his gold-plated clubhouse, he can dream of what might have been, had he only caught a break.
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