Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies on Thursday stripped Eduardo Bolsonaro -- one of former president Jair Bolsonaro’s sons -- of his seat in the lower house of parliament for his excessive absences.
Since February, Eduardo Bolsonaro has not attended parliament in Brasilia because he has been living in the United States to lobby Washington over aiding his father, who is currently imprisoned for attempting a coup.
Bolsonaro’s third son has exceeded the number of allowed absences from the chamber, according to a document obtained by AFP.
The familial lobbying efforts paid off to some extent -- at least initially.
U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly called the trial of ally Jair Bolsonaro a “witch hunt” -- the same language he used after being accused of colluding with Russia to win the 2016 election.
Trump imposed a 40 per cent tariff on Brazilian exports to the United States in August before the price of coffee -- a key product of the Latin American country -- began to spike.
Those tariffs were largely lifted in November, after Trump met with Brazil’s leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in October.
The Trump administration also sanctioned Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who ruled on Bolsonaro’s case and sentenced him to 27 years in prison -- but those sanctions were also lifted earlier this month.
Jair Bolsonaro, who has been serving time since November, could see his sentence reduced to two years under a law approved Wednesday by parliament, where conservatives hold sway.
His former intelligence chief, Alexandre Ramagem, was also stripped of his seat in parliament on Thursday. He was sentenced to 16 years in the same trial and has been in the United States.
Brazilian authorities have requested his extradition.
