# Brazil police formally accuse Bolsonaro and 36 others of coup plotting after 2022 defeat
Brazil’s federal police have formally accused former president Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others of attempting a coup to keep him in office after his defeat in the 2022 election. The accusation marks one of the most serious legal threats yet to Bolsonaro’s political future.
According to AP, the police delivered their sealed findings to Brazil’s Supreme Court, which will pass the file to Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet. He will decide whether to file formal charges and send Bolsonaro to trial, or drop the case.
Bolsonaro told the news site Metropoles that he was waiting for his lawyer to review the accusation, which he said was around 700 pages long. He dismissed the case as “creativity” and said he would fight it. Those comments suggest he is preparing for another legal and political battle rather than stepping back from public confrontation.
The case matters because it is not only about Bolsonaro himself. The AP report says the police also accused dozens of his aides and allies, including generals, a party leader and a former adviser. That widens the scope of the investigation and makes it easier for prosecutors to argue that any plot was organized rather than isolated.
Bolsonaro has denied trying to stay in power after losing narrowly to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He has also already faced other investigations, including one over undeclared diamond jewelry and another over allegedly falsified COVID-19 vaccination records. Separate proceedings have already barred him from running again until 2030.
The federal police say the Supreme Court agreed to reveal the names of all 37 accused “to avoid the dissemination of incorrect news.” That detail shows the authorities are aware that the investigation is politically explosive and that misinformation could spread quickly around it.
The broader effect is to keep Bolsonaro at the center of Brazil’s political and legal crisis. Even before any formal charge, the police accusation deepens the sense that the former president’s post-office life is becoming defined by court cases. It also raises the stakes for his allies in Congress, some of whom have been exploring amnesty or pardon options for people tied to the Jan. 8, 2023 riots.
For Brazil’s institutions, the next step now belongs to the prosecutor-general. For Bolsonaro, the police accusation is another sign that his legal exposure is widening, not narrowing, as the country continues to reckon with the attempt to overturn the 2022 election.
