Brazil’s Bolsonaro fails to testify after subpoena

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The government’s Attorney General Bruno Bianco went in Bolsonaro’s place and filed an injunction before the Supreme Court appealing against Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ subpoena, but the request was rejected on the grounds that the deadline had expired.

On Thursday night, Justice Moraes ordered the far-right president to appear at federal police headquarters in Brasilia on Friday afternoon to be questioned because as 60-day period he had granted Bolsonaro to testify had expired.

The President’s defense argued that the Supreme Court had ruled in two previous cases, in which subpoenaed people had failed to show up to testify, that coercion to obtain such testimonies was unconstitutional.

The case involves the leaking by the President of a secret police investigation into a hacking attack against the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) a few months before the presidential election that he won in 2018.