The New York Times (9/26/22) has long argued that Brazil’s attempts to hold coup plotters accountable are themselves undemocratic–a storyline Donald Trump has unsurprisingly embraced.
US President Donald Trump officially declared the state of bilateral relations with Brazil a “national emergency” on July 30, using the decision to justify imposing 40% tariffs on all imports from Brazil.
Although he had previously cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to bypass Congress and unilaterally impose tariffs on dozens of foreign nations, the Brazil case was more complicated. Unlike most other countries—where Trump cited trade deficits to justify these so-called emergencies—the US had maintained a trade surplus with Brazil for years.
It was time to pull a rabbit out of his MAGA hat, so Trump turned to a false narrative long pushed by the Bolsonaro family, and legitimized for years by figures like Elon Musk, Intercept cofounder Glenn Greenwald and, perhaps surprisingly, the New York Times.
As revealed in three separate investigations conducted by Brazil’s parliament, federal police and the Attorney General’s Office, the “authoritarian judiciary” narrative was systematically used by former President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies as the primary tactic to normalize a Trumpian “Stop the Steal” campaign. This storyline was developed for two years before it was instrumentalized after Bolsonaro lost the 2022 election. It served to justify a failed coup attempt, including the mob invasions of Brazil’s National Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Federal Court headquarters in Brasília on January 8, 2023.
Political cards on the table
“Members of the government of Brazil have taken actions that interfere with the economy of the United States, infringe the free expression rights of United States persons, violate human rights, and undermine the interest the United States has in protecting its citizens and companies,” Trump (7/30/25) declared.
“Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has abused his judicial authority to target political opponents, shield corrupt allies and suppress dissent,” Trump (or whoever actually drafted the document he signed) wrote. Claiming that Moraes, the judge who oversaw the coup investigation that resulted in Bolsonaro’s indictment, was violating the First Amendment rights of US persons, Trump proceeded to lay his political cards on the table:
Brazilian officials are also persecuting former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro. The government of Brazil has unjustly charged Bolsonaro with multiple crimes related to Bolsonaro’s 2022 runoff election, and the supreme court of Brazil has misguidedly ruled that Bolsonaro must stand trial for these unjustified criminal charges.
He was referring to a 272-page indictment by Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office, which he clearly hasn’t read. He went on to write:
Should the government of Brazil take significant steps to address the national emergency declared in this order and align sufficiently with the United States on national security, economic and foreign policy matters described in this order, I may further modify this order.
This text was widely viewed in Brazil as a threat: Annul Bolsonaro’s indictment, and I will think about dropping the tariffs.
Shortly after releasing the declaration, which contained a list of nearly 700 products exempt from the tariffs—including most of Brazil’s industrial goods, and eight of its 10 top exports to the US—Trump announced the tariffs would rise from 40% to 50%. His administration also invoked the Magnitsky Act to impose personal sanctions against Moraes.
‘Going too far?’
New York Times (8/5/25): “Justice Moraes has been criticized for going too far in his quest to safeguard Brazil’s young democracy.”
On the day Trump announced the tariffs, the New York Times (7/30/25) broke from its cycle of predominantly negative articles about the Brazilian government (FAIR.org, 5/14/24, 12/6/24) to publish a glowing interview with Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, headlined “No One Is Defying Trump Like Brazil’s President.”
Could the Times finally be abandoning the Bolsonaros’ “authoritarian judiciary” narrative—which it first embraced six days before Brazil’s first-round 2022 presidential election, with “To Defend Democracy, Is Brazil’s Top Court Going Too Far?” (9/26/22).
Six days after the Lula interview, the paper answered this question in an article (8/5/25) headlined, “Bolsonaro House Arrest Casts Shadow Over Brazil/US Trade Talks.” After correctly explaining that many people support Justice Moraes for protecting democratic institutions from ex-President Bolsonaro and his allies, reporter Ana Ionova rehashed key elements of the Trump/Bolsonaro “authoritarian judiciary” storyline.
“At times, Justice Moraes has been criticized for going too far in his quest to safeguard Brazil’s young democracy,” she wrote:
He has ordered social media platforms to take down popular accounts that he claimed threatened democracy, but refused to disclose how. He has jailed people for online threats and presided over cases in which he was both the judge and the prosecutor.
Days later, another Times article (8/11/25) by Ionova continued the critique:
[Moraes] has jailed people without trial for threats they made online, blocked news outlets from posting content critical of politicians and ordered the removal of popular social media accounts, while refusing to explain how they threatened democracy.
Since the Times has, once again, failed to properly explain what is controversial about the actions of Brazil’s supreme court—even while citing Musk, Greenwald and others‘ criticisms in a series of articles pushing the “authoritarian judiciary” narrative since 2022—it’s worth deconstructing its arguments to expose the paper’s mistruths, half-truths, and misrepresentations of contentious but legally sound actions.
Far-right threats against judges
The same right-wing campaign to intimidate judges is underway in Brazil that Reuters (2/29/24) documented in the US.
According to records from the US Marshals Service analyzed by Reuters (2/29/24), violent threats against members of the US judiciary rose by over 300% between 2015 and 2022, corresponding to the announcement of Trump’s first campaign for the presidency and the start of his attacks on judges who rule against him. During this period, the average number of threats against US federal judges rose from 1,180 per year to 3,810.
From 2020, when Trump dramatically increased his criticism of the judiciary, the number of serious threats—dire enough to trigger an investigation by the Marshals—rose from 220 in that year to 457 in 2023. Reuters counted 57 convictions of people making violent threats against US judges since 2020.
The US Marshals serve as a police force for federal judges, but due to their control by Trump’s politicized Department of Justice, a group of American judges is now working to transfer them to direct control by the judiciary. The unprecedented rise in death threats, and the DoJ’s failure to act on them, has led judges to seek unprecedented means to protect themselves and their families.
Over the last seven years, due to constant communication between Jair Bolsonaro, his son Eduardo, Steve Bannon and other key players in the US far right, nearly every tactic used by Trump has been imported to Brazil—from Covid-19 denialism to the “stop the steal” polemic to capital riots. Threats against the judiciary are no exception.
In Brazil, these threats started in 2018, when ex-President Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, a federal deputy, threatened to violently shut down the supreme court on a social media livestream that was watched by hundreds of thousands of people.
Inciting ‘disturbed people’
Justice Alexandre de Moraes gave to O Globo (3/21/19), Brazil’s largest newspaper, the explanation for why banned social media accounts threatened democracy that the New York Times (8/5/25) claims doesn’t exist.
Unlike the US, Brazil’s supreme court doesn’t have its own police force. When supreme court justices receive death threats, they normally request the Attorney General’s Office to open an investigation, which is then undertaken by the Federal Police. But what can they do if the attorney general refuses to act? Just as US judges are trying to transfer authority over the US Marshals to the courts, Brazil’s supreme court worked within legal guidelines to take matters into its own hands.
In March 2019, Chief Justice Dias Toffoli issued a decree calling for the court to oversee an investigation of threats against itself and its justices, delegating the task to Justice Alexandre de Moraes. One week later, Moraes ordered search warrants and the removal of dozens of social media accounts.
The New York Times (8/5/25) claimed Moraes “refused to disclose how” the accounts threatened democracy. In fact, at the time he told reporters from O Globo (3/21/19), Brazil’s largest newspaper, that he had ordered social media platforms to block accounts dedicated to spreading messages designed to incite hatred against the supreme court. These accounts, he said, were suspected of being financed by groups interested in destabilizing the judiciary. He added that these actions were inciting “disturbed people” to commit acts of violence—exactly the same concern judges are raising in the US.
When asked for more details about the investigation, Moraes explained to reporters that, as in any criminal investigation, some information must be withheld from the public to avoid compromising the procedure.
‘Judge and prosecutor’
One month later, after Moraes issued search warrants for the homes of four people under investigation for making threats against the supreme court—including retired Gen. Paulo Chagas, a politician who had been a hardliner in the military dictatorship—Attorney General Raquel Dodge announced she was canceling the investigation. Moraes refused to comply, arguing that the attorney general’s move to dismiss an investigation she didn’t initiate violated Brazil’s constitution, and was therefore illegal. At the time, this ruling was supported by many in Brazil’s legal community, including the powerful Order of Brazilian Lawyers, a kind of national bar association.
Although this complex legal controversy has been watered down by the Times to saying Moraes “presided over cases in which he was both the judge and the prosecutor,” it’s important to note that no Brazilian supreme court justice can judge a case by themselves. Any individual ruling has to be upheld at minimum by one of the court’s two five-member working groups, with defendants often petitioning for a subsequent ruling by the full 11-member court.
That June, Moraes’ decision was upheld by the full body of the supreme court, by a vote of 10–1. The move was criticized by some legal scholars as overstepping boundaries, with accusations that Moraes was assuming prosecutorial roles. Of course, it’s hard to find any significant judicial decision made in any country that doesn’t draw criticism from some members of the legal community: The field of law demands sharp critical skills from the people who practice it, and critics are going to criticize.
It’s also important to note that this occurred six years ago. After Dodge left office on September 17, 2019, the Attorney General’s Office changed its stance on the investigation. In June 2020, Attorney General Augusto Aras—a conservative who dismissed 104 supreme court requests for criminal investigations against Jair Bolsonaro—officially endorsed Moraes’ decision to continue the investigation after his predecessor attempted to cancel it, while requesting that he establish an end date.
After analyzing the Federal Police’s findings, current Attorney General Paulo Gonet produced his report on the 2023 coup attempt, ultimately upholding the police recommendation to indict former President Bolsonaro and 32 of his allies for plotting a military coup, which included plans to assassinate President Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and supreme court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
The fact that Bolsonaro’s indictment—first recommended in a 2023 parliamentary inquiry—was upheld by subsequent Federal Police and attorney general investigations is crucial context. Every time the Times claims Moraes has acted as both judge and prosecutor, it misleadingly implies this applies to the investigation of Bolsonaro and his cronies, who are now facing possible prison sentences of up to 44 years.
It’s also relevant to mention that this investigation has been completely separate from Dias Toffoli’s original investigation into threats against the court, which is repeatedly cited when accusing Moraes of acting as “judge and prosecutor.”
‘Attacks against free speech’
The New York Times (1/22/23) quoted Elon Musk saying that Moraes’ moves were “extremely concerning,” while Glenn Greenwald “debated a Brazilian sociologist…about Mr. de Moraes’ actions.”
Regarding the New York Times‘ repeated statement (1/22/23, 8/11/25) that Moraes has “jailed people without trial,” as shocking as that may sound out of context, it’s common practice in the United States. Some 400,000 people are currently sitting in US jails waiting for their trials to begin, due to not being able to raise bail, or to being deemed by a judge to be either a flight risk or a threat to society. Lamentably, this is a perfectly legal and common practice in Brazil, as it is in the US and many other countries around the world.
When the Times began its campaign against Brazil’s “authoritarian judiciary,” it gave space to people like Greenwald and Musk—libertarian Trump supporters with limited knowledge of Brazilian law. The paper ( 9/21/24, 7/10/25) repeatedly quoted fugitive investor Paulo Figueiredo, whom the Times itself (1/31/19) once reported had fled to Florida in 2019 to escape prosecution for a fraudulent real estate deal involving Trump Enterprises. Citing him as a critic of Moraes, the paper didn’t mention that he is the unapologetic grandson of João Figueiredo, who oversaw indigenous massacres and the torture and murder of labor union and student leaders as Brazil’s intelligence chief before becoming Brazil’s last dictator.
As I reported for FAIR (5/14/24) in 2024, this series of Times articles became the most-cited source used by Republican lawmakers in a US congressional hearing on “attacks against free speech” in Brazil, during which Figueiredo and Public founder Michael Shellenberger falsely accused the Brazilian government of authoritarianism.
Now the arguments presented in the Times—combined with false narratives promoted by figures like Greenwald and Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon—have bolstered Trump’s justification for imposing tariffs on Brazilian goods like coffee (which the US barely produces), a move made for political reasons that will hurt US consumers.
Isn’t it time the New York Times exercised a minimal amount of self-awareness about its role in this process, and retracted its misleading and hypocritical “authoritarian judiciary” narrative?
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This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Brian Mier.