Far-right Bolsonaro allies want to take anti-democratic fight abroad

A group of far-right pro-Bolsonaro lawmakers launched a campaign with a very clear mission: “The world will know that Brazil is a dictatorship,” as Congressman Gustavo Gayer said during a press conference in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Mr. Gayer reminded reporters of his trip last week to Washington D.C., where he and other lawmakers met with U.S. Congressman Chris Smith, of the Republican Party. They held a joint event outside the Capitol, where Mr. Smith promised to chair a public hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives to denounce “human rights violations” in Brazil.

Mr. Gayer said they won’t stop there. “We have trips scheduled to the European Parliament, to the court in The Hague,” Mr. Gayer added.

The far-right has ramped up its international agenda in a propaganda effort to denounce the investigations into former President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies as a witch hunt, much like supporters of Donald Trump have done in the U.S. In both countries, leaders conspired to overturn democracy and mobs attacked public buildings after their leader lost re-election.

The campaign has intensified as investigations have closed in on Mr. Bolsonaro. Last week, the Supreme Court unsealed testimonies given by former Air Force and Army commanders to the Federal Police, who told investigators how the former president invited them to stage an old-fashioned coup before fleeing to the U.S. in late 2022.

On Monday, the day before the opposition’s press conference, the feds filed criminal charges against former Mr. Bolsonaro and others for defrauding public records to forge fake Covid vaccination certificates — as Mr. Bolsonaro is a vaccine denialist.

The fake certificates, investigators said, could have provided Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies...