Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other House Democrats called on President Biden to extradite former Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro from Florida a day after thousands of his supporters stormed the country’s government buildings Sunday.
The far-right former leader had fled to the US days before his term ended on Jan. 1 — and after challenging the results of his failed October re-election bid, which he lost to leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the current president.
As Bolsonaro, 67, was holed up in a suburban Orlando safe house, supporters who refused to accept his defeat stormed the halls of government in a riot reminiscent of the raid on the US Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump amid his false claims of election fraud on Jan. 6, 2021.
Some 1,200 protesters had already been detained by authorities Monday and 400 of them had been arrested after leaving the iconic buildings utterly pillaged, striking footage showed.
Thousands of rioters clad in the country’s colors of green and yellow took more than 100 buses to Brasília and overwhelmed security to storm and ransack the governmental buildings, breaking windows, toppling furniture — including the bench that seats the nation’s high court — and vandalizing monuments.
Terrifying footage showed insurrectionists armed with batons knocking a mounted officer off his horse and beating the man and the animal. Another video shared on social media appeared to show a man wielding a stolen copy of Brazil’s 1988 constitution, which was housed in the Supreme Court.
Violent protesters also seized guns from a security office and punctured a massive Emiliano Di Cavalcanti painting at the government complex.
It was not immediately clear how many people were injured in the breach, and no deaths had been reported.
US Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat who serves as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, said on CNN Sunday that Bolsonaro had “used the Trump playbook to inspire domestic terrorists.”
The strongman had said the close election results were invalid — without citing evidence — and his lawmaker son Eduardo Bolsonaro had met with Trump and his strategists Steve Bannon and Jason Miller at Mar-a-Lago in the wake of the disputed contest.
“Bolsonaro should not be in Florida,” Castro said. “The United States should not be a refuge for this authoritarian who has inspired domestic terrorism in Brazil. He should be sent back to Brazil.”
Castro’s call for extradition was echoed by Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow Democrat who represents New York City.
“The US must cease granting refuge to Bolsonaro in Florida,” she tweeted Sunday. “Nearly two years to the day the U.S. Capitol was attacked by fascists, we see fascist movements abroad attempt to do the same in Brazil.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) also tweeted, “Bolsonaro should not be given refuge in Florida.”
Biden had condemned the “assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil” and said the situation was “outrageous,” but stopped short of saying he would have Bolsonaro kicked out of the country in a brief Sunday Twitter statement.
“President Biden is following the situation closely and our support for Brazil’s democratic institutions is unwavering. Brazil’s democracy will not be shaken by violence,” his national security adviser Jake Sullivan tweeted Sunday.
“They will not succeed in destroying Brazilian democracy. We need to say that fully, with all firmness and conviction,” Justice Minister Flávio Dino said. “We will not accept the path of criminality to carry out political fights in Brazil. A criminal is treated like a criminal.”
As investigators scoured the ruined government halls for evidence and arrested suspects, questions remained about the preparedness of security officials, whose inability to prevent the breach was reminiscent of the underwhelming response to the attack on the US Capitol.
Bolonsaro — who had been accused of “crimes against humanity” by a Brazil Senate committee for his handling of one of the world’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks, and had fled to the US as his presidential immunity from prosecution expired — issued a statement tepidly chiding the rioters.
“Peaceful demonstrations, in the form of the law, are part of democracy. However, depredations and invasions of public buildings as occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, escape the rule,” the self-exiled former leader tweeted in Portuguese Sunday evening.
With Post wires