Brazil’s Bolsonaro Heads to Davos as Son Faces Corruption Probe

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, is heading towards Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum, in Davos to speak about his plans to combat widespread corruption in the country, but at home his son, Flavio Bolsonaro, is being pressured to answer questions about investigations related to a former employee.

“I have no doubt that they are persecuting me and the target is also the president of the Republic,” said the president’s eldest son during a TV interview this weekend.

The government’s Financial Activities Control Council’s report (Coaf) questions the fact that Flavio Bolsonaro received R$96,000 reais over a few months period and that he made a payment of just over one million reais, to a person who was not identified in the deposits.

The younger Bolsonaro has justified his financial movements by stating that the payment made refers to the transfer of the debt of an apartment that he had bought and that the deposits received in his account were amounts that he deposited respecting the limit of R$2,000 reais of the ATM (automatic teller machines); therefore, there were in several installments.

The ‘Bolsonaro clan’, which includes the President, a senator, a Chamber of House Representative and a state legislature representative, have repeatedly positioned themselves against the privileged forum of politicians in the Federal Supreme Court.

Flavio Bolsonaro, however, appealed to the Court last week, requesting that the investigations against a former employee, Fabricio Queiroz, be stopped because he was involved. The Supreme Court granted his request until February when the full Court is back from end-of-year-vacation.

One of President Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign pledges was to end corruption within all spheres of the Brazilian government. As a sign of his commitment to ‘fighting corruption’, Bolsonaro nominated the Lava Jato investigation’s main judge, Sergio Moro as his Justice and Public Security Minister.