In a move that one political scientist said appeared aimed at "promoting autocracy globally," U.S. President Donald Trump's media company sued a Supreme Court justice in Brazil Tuesday just as the judge was considering whether to order the arrest of former right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro—a close ally of Trump.
The Trump Media and Technology Group, which runs the president's Truth Social platform, filed a lawsuit against Justice Alexandre de Moraes in a U.S. court in Tampa, Florida.
Along with the social media site Rumble, the company, in which Trump holds a majority stake, argued that Moraes censored conservative commentators in the U.S. by ordering Rumble to remove accounts of high-profile supporters of Bolsonaro.
Moraes last year ordered the suspensions of hundreds of social media accounts that he argued promoted the anti-democratic actions of the former Brazilian president and his supporters.
The judge ordered the confiscation of Bolsonaro's passport and the arrests of his allies as the government investigated a plot to stage a coup after the former president's 2022 election loss. Similar to the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol after Trump urged his supporters to try to stop lawmakers from certifying the 2020 election results, a mob of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the Brazilian Supreme Court and other government buildings in January 2023.
On Tuesday, hours before Trump's company filed its lawsuit, Moraes received an indictment of Bolsonaro in which prosecutors accused the former president of plotting to assassinate the judge in order to retain power.
Bolsonaro has also been accused of orchestrating a plot to kill his successor and political rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The former president has denied involvement in the coup attempt and assassination plot.
With the indictment received by the Supreme Court, Moraes is expected to weigh whether Bolsonaro poses a flight risk and should be arrested and detained until his trial.
But Trump appeared intent on pressuring the judge out of seeking the arrest of his ally.
Kevin Pallister, author of the book Elections in Latin America: Campaigns, Voters, and Institutions, said Moraes "has gone too far in censoring online content in Brazil. But this lawsuit is about pressuring him to let Bolsonaro off the hook."
Trump's company argued in its lawsuit that Moraes' "gag orders" demanding the removal of prominent pro-Bolsonaro accounts from Rumble "enforce a universal ban on the targeted accounts—imposing a total blackout that extends even to U.S. users."
The LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group Truth Wins Out said Trump's fight against the censorship of right-wing voices on social media displays "astounding" hypocrisy considering his purge of "all dissent" in the ranks of the federal government in recent weeks.
The lawsuit comes a month after Bolsonaro expressed hope in a New York Times interview that Trump's reentry into the White House could have a positive impact on his legal battles in Brazil.
"I'm not going to try to give Trump any tips, ever," he told the newspaper. "But I hope his politics really spill over into Brazil."
Moraes has also come into conflict with Elon Musk, the tech mogul who has been designated a "special government employee" as the head of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, overseeing the takeover of numerous federal agency and seizure of troves of confidential data.
Musk backed down last year from his refusal to comply with Moraes' order to suspend accounts that the judge said attacked Brazil's democratic institutions.
The billionaire has repeatedly called for Moraes to be jailed and insulted him in social media posts in response to the judge's orders.
