MIAMI (TNND) — Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, who lost Sunday’s election, thanked Argentina’s government and President Donald Trump on Wednesday for helping him leave Brazil and reach the United States safely.
Video and photos showed Bolsonaro and his family arriving at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport in Florida shortly after 9 a.m. He left Brazil after losing to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro called for the results to be annulled, citing extended voting at some polling places.
“Given the political weaponization of justice in Brazil, I brought my family to the United States, where we are safe,” Bolsonaro said in a statement.
“I did not flee Brazil. I left Brazil — left a state of exception — so I could be the leader my people deserve,” he added.
A senior State Department official said the U.S. would issue visas to Bolsonaro and his family and allow them to enter the country. The official spoke anonymously because of visa privacy laws.
Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brazil’s Supreme Court in two cases involving allegations of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. In one, he is accused of using a sports betting company to launder fraudulent deductions from government pensions paid to senior citizens. In the other, he is accused of accepting millions of dollars from a disgraced banker.
Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing in both cases. He has also claimed that Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is leading one investigation, is an ally of Lula.
Bolsonaro has touted his relationship with Trump and visited the White House in May. Trump did not fully endorse him in the runoff, but on Monday suggested, without providing evidence, that Brazil’s election was “rigged.”
On Wednesday, Trump declined to say who he believed won the election but acknowledged the U.S. had allowed Bolsonaro to enter the country.
“But I won’t get involved. It was a very strange election, that’s for sure,” Trump told reporters.
Asked why Bolsonaro and his family were granted visas, Trump said he thought they had been “treated very unfairly.”