Brazilian Senator and presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro on Tuesday announced that he will lodge a complaint against socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after Lula publicly insinuated that the sons of former President Jair Bolsonaro deserved to be “hanged” following a visit to the United States.
In a statement shared with local outlets, Senator Bolsonaro explained that he will lodge the complaint before the nation’s top court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), accusing Lula of threatening him and inciting crimes against his family during an official government event on Tuesday.
“Flávio Bolsonaro will file a complaint with the Supreme Federal Tribunal today regarding crimes committed by Lula. On June 2, 2026, Lula stated that the senator should suffer the same fate as Tiradentes and be hanged. According to Flávio Bolsonaro, the president’s remarks constitute the crimes of making threats and incitement to commit a crime,” Bolsonaro’s full statement read, according to Brazilian outlets.
The Brazilian presidency has not publicly commented on the announcement at press time.
Senator Bolsonaro, who is challenging Lula in the October 2026 presidential election, met with President Donald Trump at the White House last week in the company of his brother, former lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro. Eduardo Bolsonaro has lived in the United States since 2025 after he requested political asylum. Flávio Bolsonaro is running for president after his father, conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro, was banned from public office and imprisoned on “crimes against democracy” charges last year.
At the meeting, Bolsonaro requested that the United States designate the dangerous Brazilian gangs Comando Vermelho (Red Command) and Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Capital Command, or PCC), as terrorist organizations. As Breitbart News first exclusively reported, the United States designated both gangs as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) and Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) hours after Trump’s encounter with the Bolsonaro siblings. The designations will become effective on June 5.
While the Bolsonaros and Brazilian conservative figures celebrated the U.S. designation of both criminal gangs, the decision has dawn fierce criticism from President Lula and his administration, who accused the Bolsonaros of being “traitors” to Brazil. On Tuesday, speaking at an event in Catalão, Goiás, Lula repeated the “treason” accusations and compared the Bolsonaros’ visit to the White House and requests to President Trump to historic events that occurred in Brazil during Portuguese colonial rule.
“What do I mean by that? I mean that this son of Bolsonaro manages to be even worse than his father, and they are, in fact, traitors to the nation. They went to ask a foreign country to meddle in Brazilian affairs. That’s what you have to say, loud and clear. They are traitors,” Lula said. “For less than that, Joaquim Silveira do Reis, who betrayed Tiradentes, was hanged.”
“That’s what traitors to the country deserve — those who go asking for another country to intervene in ours. Think, think, reflect, because this guy shows up there today and thinks, ‘I didn’t say anything, I didn’t say anything,’” he continued. “Every coward is like that, they spout the crap they spout, then don’t have the guts to own up to what they said, and just keep trying to lie.”
CNN Brasil, Poder 360, and O Globo all pointed out that Lula erroneously quoted Brazilian history in his threats against the Bolsonaro family.
Poder 360 explained that while Lula claimed that Joaquim Silvério dos Reis — a whistleblower in Colonial Brazil’s 1789 Mineira separatist conspiracy — was hanged for treason, in reality, it was Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as Tiradentes (“Toothpuller”), who was hanged in 1792. Silvério dos Reis died in 1819 of natural causes.
UOL further fact-checked Lula’s erroneous account of Brazilian history on Wednesday morning. The outlet explained that Joaquim Silvério dos Reis (1756–1818) is historically known for betraying the Inconfidência, or Minas Conspiracy, one of the first pro-republican uprisings in Brazil against Portuguese rule. The movement, which lasted between 1788 and 1789, was led by Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as Tiradentes.
“Tiradentes was denounced to the Portuguese authorities by Colonel Silvério dos Reis, who until then had been his personal friend and fellow conspirator in the Inconfidência Mineira. He betrayed the movement to the Portuguese Crown in exchange for forgiveness of his enormous debts to the Royal Treasury, thus becoming the subject of the first known plea bargain in the country,” UOL wrote.
Sen. Bolsonaro referred to Lula’s threats against him during an official event in Belo Horizonte and, addressing the Brazilian president, stressed, “Oh, Lula, I don’t have the word ‘fear’ in my vocabulary. We have a lot of courage here.” Bolsonaro shared a clip of his remarks on social media.
According to Brazilian outlets, Lula, recalling Sen. Bolsonaro’s meeting with Trump, also claimed during Tuesday’s official event in Catalão that the senator allegedly said, “Trump, give Lula a beating, tax Lula, because Lula is going to win the election—don’t let that happen, undermine Lula.”
Lula’s claim comes after U.S Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer announced this week that the Trump administration is evaluating imposing new 25 percent tariffs on Brazilian goods after the USTR determined that Brazil is incurring in a litany of unfair trade practices in detriment of U.S. commerce.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.