President Trump’s media company sued a Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Wednesday, accusing him of illegally censoring right-wing voices on social media.
The unusual move was made all the more extraordinary by its timing: Just hours earlier, the Brazilian justice had received an indictment that would force him to decide whether to order the arrest of Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president and an ally of Mr. Trump. The justice is overseeing multiple criminal investigations into Mr. Bolsonaro.
The Trump Media & Technology Group — which is majority owned by Mr. Trump and runs his Truth Social site — sued the Brazilian justice, Alexandre de Moraes, in U.S. federal court in Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday morning. Joining as a plaintiff was Rumble, a Florida-based video platform that, like Truth Social, pitches itself as a home for free speech.
The lawsuit appeared to represent an astonishing effort by Mr. Trump to pressure a foreign judge as he weighed the fate of a fellow right-wing leader who, like him, was indicted on charges that he tried to overturn his election loss.
Mr. Bolsonaro had explicitly called on Mr. Trump to take action against Justice Moraes in an interview with The New York Times last month. At the time, it was not clear how Mr. Trump might be able to influence Brazil’s domestic politics.
The companies accused Justice Moraes of censoring political discourse in the United States and infringing upon the First Amendment by ordering Rumble to remove the accounts of prominent supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro.
The companies argued that those orders could apply to how those accounts appeared in the United States, breaking American law. Mr. Trump’s company has not been subject to Justice Moraes’s orders, but it argued in the lawsuit that it relied on Rumble’s technology and therefore could be harmed if Rumble’s operations were affected.
Justice Moraes has argued that his actions are necessary to protect Brazil from the anti-democratic acts of Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters. His spokeswoman said that Justice Moraes did not have immediate comment.
It was unclear how or whether the lawsuit would affect the proceedings in Brazil. Justice Moraes has largely proved immune to years of intense criticism and pressure from the Brazilian right as he aggressively investigated Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters.
As part of investigations into attacks against Brazil’s democracy, Justice Moraes has ordered arrests of Mr. Bolsonaro’s allies and the confiscation of the former president’s passport, as well as the suspension of hundreds of social media accounts belonging to his supporters. Last year, Justice Moraes faced off against Elon Musk — and won — blocking Mr. Musk’s social network, X, in Brazil until the billionaire backed down in his refusal to comply with the judge’s orders to suspend accounts.
Those actions have raised questions, even among moderate Brazilians, about whether Justice Moraes was posing his own threat to democracy.
The moves have also arguably made the judge Mr. Bolsonaro’s political archrival — and a target. In 2023, a mob of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters raided Brazil’s Supreme Court. Late last year, a Bolsonaro supporter tried to bomb the Supreme Court but instead killed only himself. And on Tuesday, new details emerged in the indictment of Mr. Bolsonaro showing that, according to Brazilian investigators, the former president and his allies had plotted to assassinate Justice Moraes as part of their bid to hold on to power.
Mr. Bolsonaro has denied that he tried to stage a coup or had any knowledge of a plot to kill Justice Moraes.
On Tuesday, Justice Moraes was tasked with his most consequential decision yet: whether to arrest Mr. Bolsonaro.
As the head of the federal investigation into the former president, he received the indictment and will decide how it proceeds. His first order of business will be weighing whether Mr. Bolsonaro represents a flight risk and thus should be held in jail until a trial. Justice Moraes has already used such measures against Mr. Bolsonaro’s allies, including his former running mate, who has been jailed since December.
