BRASILIA (Guardian) -- The 
supreme court judge presiding over the trial of Brazil’s ex-president, Jair Bolsonaro, has said a “cowardly and treacherous” plot is afoot to pave the way for another attack on the South American country’s democracy.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes was put under sanctions by the U.S. on Wednesday, as part of an apparent push by Donald Trump to help his ally Bolsonaro escape punishment for allegedly masterminding an attempted coup after losing the 2022 election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Trump also slapped a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports in response to what he called the “witch-hunt” against the far-right former president.
On Friday, Moraes, a shaven-headed Muay Thai practitioner known by the nickname Xandão (‘Big Al’), came out swinging. He told the court that Trump’s tariffs and the “spurious” sanctions targeting him and other supreme court justices recently stripped of their U.S. visas, were part of an “illegal and immoral” ruse to obstruct justice that was being engineered by a group of Brazilian “traitors” who had lobbied foreign authorities to carry out “hostile acts” against the country’s economy.
Moraes said the campaign’s objectives were identical to those of the January 8, 2023 riots in the capital, Brasília, when hardcore Bolsonaro supporters stormed the supreme court, congress and presidential palace in an attempt to reverse his election defeat. Those rioters, Moraes said, had hoped to generate social chaos that would provoke a military intervention and make way for a coup.
Two and a half years later, Moraes claimed that by lobbying foreign authorities to impose tariffs, the Brazilians behind the alleged plot were trying to trigger “an economic crisis, that would create a social and then a political crisis so that, once again, there might be social instability and the chance of a new putschist attack”.
“To the disappointment of these Brazilian traitors, [that] will not occur,” the judge added.
Moraes did not name the “supposedly patriotic Brazilians” he claimed were leading the supposed plot from overseas. But his comments were an unmistakable reference to Bolsonaro’s third son, the congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, who moved to the U.S. in February and has admitted to lobbying Trump officials to pressure Brazil over his father’s plight. 
The supreme court’s coup trial is expected to conclude in the coming weeks and Bolsonaro – who has denied leading a power grab – is expected to be convicted and sentenced to up to 43 years, meaning the 70-year-old could spend the rest of his life in jail.
Trump’s attempt to pressure Brazil’s government and judiciary over Bolsonaro’s fate has sparked the most severe diplomatic crisis between Brazil and the U.S. in decades. “The U.S. government’s interference in the Brazilian justice system is unacceptable,” Lula said on Wednesday.