Bolsonaro Faces New Legal Jeopardy After Stay at Hungarian Embassy

Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered former President Jair Bolsonaro to explain why he spent two nights at the Hungarian Embassy, and the Brazilian federal police began investigating whether the February stay violated earlier court orders, police and court officials have said.

The moves from the Supreme Court and federal police add to mounting legal jeopardy for Brazil’s former leader and followed a New York Times investigation published on Monday that showed Mr. Bolsonaro hid at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasília days after the authorities confiscated his passport because he was under criminal investigation.

The Times report, based on three days of footage from the embassy’s security cameras, showed that the former president had appeared to be seeking political asylum from Hungary, whose prime minister is a fellow hard-right leader, Viktor Orban.

After The Times’s reporting, Mr. Bolsonaro confirmed that he had stayed at the embassy but declined to say why. “I have a circle of friends with some world leaders,” he told a Brazilian news outlet. “They’re worried.” His lawyer then issued a statement saying that Mr. Bolsonaro’s stay at the embassy was merely to talk politics and that “any other interpretation” was “just another piece of fake news.”

That account was not enough for Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Brazilian Supreme Court, who has overseen a series of investigations into Mr. Bolsonaro. On Monday night, Mr. Moraes gave the former president 48 hours to explain his stay at the embassy, according to Mariana Oliveira, a court spokeswoman.