On Friday, President Jair Bolsonaro took part in a corporate event at Caixa, Brazil’s largest state-owned bank. He told the audience that the government “could face a tsunami” this week, without going into any further detail. Newspaper O Globo revealed a possible explanation for the president’s comments, reporting that a state court in Rio de Janeiro has lifted the bank secrecy of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro.
The president’s eldest son is suspected of running an embezzlement scheme while serving as a state congressman in Rio—a scandal that first broke in December last year. Investigators believe that his staffers were forced to surrender part of their salaries to the politician, something that, while common in Brazilian politics (to the point of having its own nickname), is 100 percent illegal.
President Jair Bolsonaro’s talk of a “tsunami” may not be an overstatement. The judicial ruling grants a surprising level of access to...
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