# Bolsonaro ordered to wear ankle monitor and barred from night outings and embassies
Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro was ordered on 2025-07-18 to wear an electronic ankle monitor, stay home at night and avoid embassies, foreign ambassadors and diplomats, as the Supreme Court tightened conditions around his conduct while he faces a coup-related trial. The order is one of the sharpest legal steps yet taken against the former president and deepens the confrontation between Brazil’s judiciary, Bolsonaro’s allies and U.S. president Donald Trump.
AP reported that federal police searched Bolsonaro’s home and his party’s headquarters in Brasília as part of the operation. The restrictions also bar him from using social media or contacting other people under Supreme Court investigation, including his son Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in the United States and has close ties to Trump.
Bolsonaro called the measure “a supreme humiliation,” but the court’s concern is clear from the scope of the order. Judges are trying to prevent him from using political networks, foreign contacts or public messaging in ways that could affect an ongoing investigation into an alleged attempt to overturn the 2022 election won by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The political context is unusually tense. Trump had already written to Bolsonaro describing his treatment by the Brazilian justice system as terrible and unjust, and then tied a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods to Bolsonaro’s trial. The U.S. State Department also announced visa restrictions on Brazilian judicial officials, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio accusing Justice Alexandre de Moraes of a political witch hunt and saying visas would be revoked for Moraes and his allies on the court, along with immediate family members.
Brazilian prosecutors say Bolsonaro acted systematically during and after his presidency to incite insurrection and destabilize democratic rule. The Supreme Court’s restrictions are part of a second investigation touching Eduardo Bolsonaro’s alleged work with U.S. authorities to impose sanctions on Brazilian officials. That adds an international dimension to a case already loaded with domestic tension.
For Bolsonaro, the ankle monitor is both a physical constraint and a public signal that the court sees a real risk of obstruction or flight. For his supporters, it will likely be framed as judicial persecution. For Brazil’s institutions, it is another test of whether the country can prosecute a former president without the case becoming a wider diplomatic crisis.
The trial is expected to resume between August and September, meaning the legal and political pressure is far from over.
