When we first watched the surveillance footage, we were stunned.
There was the Hungarian ambassador to Brazil pacing nervously in the embassy. There was Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president — fresh off court orders not to leave the country because of an intensifying criminal investigation — arriving at the gate. There were the embassy staff members hustling to the guest quarters with linens and a coffee maker.
And then, for two days, there was Mr. Bolsonaro wandering the parking lot, looking bored, and there were his security guards fetching pizza.
Given the circumstances — a politician facing potential imprisonment sleeping at a foreign embassy controlled by a political ally — it had all the hallmarks of a man seeking political asylum. Foreign embassies can be considered sovereign territory and have historically been used as refuge for people fleeing custody.
Colleagues and I published an article saying so, complete with clips from the footage.
In response, Mr. Bolsonaro’s lawyers issued a statement saying he had merely gone to the embassy to talk politics. Any suggestion otherwise, they said, was “fake news.”
Alexandre de Moraes, the Brazilian Supreme Court justice leading sprawling criminal investigations into the former president, later decided that Mr. Bolsonaro had not broken the law by sleeping at the embassy.
So when I sat down with Mr. Bolsonaro for an interview this week, I was eager to finally ask him why — in the middle of Brazil’s carnival, four days after the police confiscated his passport — he had decided to sleep in the small guest room of the Hungarian embassy.
Here is an excerpt from our exchange, translated from Portuguese and edited for clarity.
Why did you sleep at the Hungarian embassy for two nights?
Look, it was a question of time zones with whom I was talking. And that’s final.
But you slept there for two nights?
Yes.
Is that normal?
That’s up for me to decide.
You don’t have a bed in Brasília? (Brasília is Brazil’s capital.)
I do. I could’ve been fighting with my wife. I’m not saying. Just like when I talk to the authorities, I don’t say I did. Nothing leaks from me. Zero.
Have you slept at another embassy?
Who knows? I’m friends with Israel. I get along with countries in the Arab world. I’m not going to say what I do because that gives them a narrative to chase. I’m a free citizen.
The team of Alexandre de Moraes wanted to arrest me because I went without a passport. You don’t need a passport to enter an embassy.
You are a private citizen. You’re also a former president who talks about the importance of the truth. So it’s natural to want to understand why you slept at a foreign embassy four days after the authorities searched your home.
They could have arrested me during the search if they wanted. Anything I do is an attempt to hide to them. Was it refuge? Asylum? With asylum, you deal directly with the president.
Was it a bid for asylum? It seems strange to sleep in an embassy.
Isn’t it strange that I’m being persecuted? Everything I might say, the other side could go after me. I met with [President Viktor Orban of Hungary] in Argentina at [President Javier] Milei’s inauguration. I get along well with him.
It wasn’t a crime what I did. If there had been any crime, they would have arrested me.
[The embassy’s surveillance footage also showed a person visit Mr. Bolsonaro for 38 minutes. A Brazilian news outlet later reported it was his son, Carlos. Carlos was in the room with us.]
Carlos, you visited your father, right? What happened?
Carlos Bolsonaro: I just talked to my father about …
[Lawyer in the room interrupts to request to talk off the record.]
Jair Bolsonaro: Do you think I would have trouble leaving Brazil right now? No passport? Don’t a ton of illegal immigrants go to the United States? I’m an Army captain. I’m used to the hardships out there.
OK. So why were you at the embassy?
Who knows? Maybe I have a lover there.
I’m not trying to be difficult, but I care about the truth, and you say you do, too. So I just want to understand.
It’s a secret. Maybe one day you’ll find out.
