President Donald Trump was—predictably—dismayed by the news that Brazil’s former right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, had been sentenced to 27 years in prison.

“President Bolsonaro was just found guilty by the Supreme Court [of Brazil]. You’ve been very clear that you would apply further sanctions to Brazil because of Bolsonaro,” a reporter said to Trump on Thursday. 

Trump on Bolsonaro: It's very much like they tried to do with me but they didn't get away with it pic.twitter.com/6fIa4ceZKK

 “Well, I watched that trial, I know him pretty well. Hard leader … I thought he was a good president of Brazil. And it’s very surprising that that could happen. That’s very much like they tried to do with me, but they couldn’t get away with it, at all,” the president replied. “But uh, I can only say this: I knew him as president of Brazil, he was a good man. And I don’t see that happening.” 

Trump and Bolsonaro share a long-running fondness for authoritarianism that transcends borders, and has led them to become true allies over the years.

On Thursday, Brazil’s Supreme Court sentenced the former leader to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup in 2023, or what some see as an attempt to recreate January 6 in Brazil. Bolsonaro had his supporters raid Brazil’s presidential palace, the Supreme Court, and Congress, all because he’d rather see chaos than admit he lost the election to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. 

The coup attempt caused “damage of an Amazonian scale.” Bolsonaro also planned to have multiple leaders arrested or assassinated. 

The former Brazilian leader’s actions and conviction only endeared him to Trump. In July, the president posted one of his many tariff letters on Truth Social, this one addressed to Brazil. He ordered them to end their “witch hunt” of Bolsonaro “IMMEDIATELY” or be hit with 50 percent tariffs. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also chimed in disapprovingly. 

“The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil’s supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro,” Rubio wrote Thursday on X. “The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”

 While Brazil’s left is wary of continued, U.S.-backed attempts from Bolsonaro’s party and supporters to free him, they see the conviction as  repudiation of authoritarianism rather than a political persecution. 

“Today, Brazil is making history,” Lindbergh Farias, who heads Lula’s Workers’ Party in the lower house of Brazil’s Congress, said, after Bolsonaro’s sentencing. “Brazil is saying: ‘Coups are a crime!’”

FBI Director Kash Patel’s yapping may have implicated Donald Trump in another legal fiasco.

A lawsuit brought by three senior FBI agents—Brian Driscoll, Steven Jensen, and Spencer Evans—accuses Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and the agencies they head of wrongfully firing the men.

Driscoll argued that he was fired after he attempted to halt the firing of another FBI employee, Christopher Meyer, who was ordered to pilot Patel’s flights to Las Vegas but had also been falsely accused of signing off on the agency’s 2022 raid of Mar-a-Lago.

Driscoll served as acting FBI director at the start of the year—by accident. Robert Kissane was supposed to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray in January, but a clerical error instead placed Driscoll at the top of the FBI. Kissane then acted as Driscoll’s number two—an oversight that wasn’t corrected until the Senate confirmed Patel at the end of February. Driscoll notably refused orders from the White House to expose the bureau staff who were involved in the January 6 probe, earning him the adoration of his colleagues, who nicknamed the 45-year-old “Saint Driz.”

The legal complaint torches Patel’s leadership at the agency from the perspective of the senior agents, accusing the FBI leader of punishing the trio because they attempted to treat other subordinates, such as Meyer, with respect. But the suit also claims that Patel was fully aware of the illegality of his actions as he worked to force them and their peers out the door.

“When Driscoll explained that firing employees based on case assignments would be in direct violation of internal FBI processes meant to adjudicate adverse actions and prevent retaliation based on case assignments, Patel said that he understood that and he knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed,” the complaint reads.

Beyond blatantly violating the law, the statement also stood in direct contrast to what Patel had promised Congress during his confirmation process weeks earlier, when he swore to Senator Richard Blumenthal that all FBI employees would “be protected against political retribution.”

But the phrasing of Patel’s rebuke also implicated Trump, explicitly pointing to the Justice Department and the White House as the origin of the command.

“Patel explained that there was nothing he or Driscoll could do to stop these or any other firings, because ‘the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it,’” according to the legal filing.

National security journalists were quick to note that Patel’s loose lips might have made it easier for the ex-FBI agents to achieve an incredible feat: getting a U.S. president to sit for a deposition.

FBI Director Kash Patel is hoping to salvage his mishandled manhunt for Charlie Kirk’s killer.

Speaking at a press........

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