Nicolai Haugsted
Senior US officials allegedly worked behind the scenes to bring Trump’s political allies back to power.
Foreign elections are supposed to be decided by the people casting the ballots. But relations between Washington and its political allies abroad have rarely been quite that straightforward.
President Donald Trump’s administration has taken an increasingly assertive approach to Latin America, using sanctions, trade restrictions and diplomatic pressure to pursue its regional priorities.
Brazil, the largest country in South America, has found itself caught up in those tensions as its presidential election approaches a decisive moment.
Now, a Reuters investigation has raised serious questions about whether two senior American officials went considerably further than conventional diplomacy.
According to ten current and former US officials familiar with the matter, the pair spent months promoting policies intended to help the family of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro regain political power.
The allegations emerge just as Bolsonaro’s son prepares to challenge the country’s sitting president in a closely contested election.
Two American officials come under scrutiny
At the heart of the investigation are Darren Beattie and Ricardo Pita, two political appointees who held influential positions within the US State Department.
Beattie, a senior adviser responsible for Western Hemisphere affairs, oversaw American policy toward Brazil.
Pita, another senior adviser, was subsequently promoted to deputy assistant secretary for North America.
According to Reuters’ sources, the two officials enjoyed considerable freedom in directing Washington’s relationship with Brazil.
Their alleged objective was remarkably specific.
Before Brazil’s presidential campaign had formally begun, Beattie and Pita reportedly instructed American diplomats that restoring Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency was US policy.
That presented an obvious obstacle.
Bolsonaro had already been disqualified from holding office after his efforts to overturn the 2022 election, which he lost to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
In September 2025, the former president was also sentenced to 27 years in prison following his conviction for plotting a coup.
With the family’s most prominent political figure unable to run, the reported strategy shifted.
Bolsonaro’s son becomes the new priority
According to three people familiar with the internal discussions, Beattie and Pita subsequently directed their attention toward Senator Flávio Bolsonaro.
The younger Bolsonaro had emerged as a presidential contender, offering supporters of his father’s political movement another route back to the country’s highest office.
Reuters’ sources said the two American officials instructed US Embassy personnel not to engage with rival conservative candidates who might challenge Flávio Bolsonaro.
Such instructions, if accurately described, would suggest an effort to favor a particular political faction rather than maintain relationships across Brazil’s political spectrum.
The allegations arrive ahead of Sunday’s presidential runoff, in which Flávio Bolsonaro faces Lula.
The incumbent president has accused his opponent of coordinating with the Trump administration and warned Washington against interfering with Brazil’s sovereignty.
Reuters could not establish whether Beattie and Pita were following direct instructions from Trump or Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump has publicly defended Jair Bolsonaro but has not formally endorsed either candidate in the election.
Sanctions become part of the controversy
The investigation also describes how American economic and diplomatic measures allegedly became instruments in the effort to influence Brazil’s political landscape.
According to the ten sources, Beattie and Pita advocated punitive actions designed to weaken Lula’s administration and strengthen the Bolsonaro family’s position.
One particularly contentious measure targeted Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
Moraes had overseen investigations into Jair Bolsonaro and played a prominent role in legal proceedings involving the former president.
The Trump administration accused the justice of violating free-speech rights by restricting political content on social media and taking legal action against Brazilians over online posts.
Moraes, meanwhile, maintained that his efforts were intended to combat misinformation that threatened confidence in Brazil’s democratic institutions.
The dispute eventually reached Washington’s sanctions machinery.
A meeting in Washington precedes action against a judge
Jair Bolsonaro’s family had spent considerable time lobbying American officials to punish Moraes under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
The legislation allows the United States to impose sanctions on foreign individuals accused of serious human-rights abuses or corruption.
According to two former US officials, Eduardo Bolsonaro, another of the former president’s sons, visited Beattie at the State Department around April 2025.
Eduardo had already publicly advocated sanctions against Moraes.
In March that year, he described their eventual introduction as “practically certain.”
A former American official told Reuters that Beattie subsequently contacted the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to argue for sanctions against the Brazilian justice.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly did not object.
Washington announced sanctions against Moraes in July 2025, citing alleged violations of free-speech rights.
The sequence of events has raised questions about the extent to which the Bolsonaro family’s lobbying influenced American policy.
However, the sanctions themselves do not establish that the measures were adopted solely to influence Brazil’s election.
The Treasury Department later removed Moraes from its sanctions list in December without providing an official explanation.
Criminal gangs become another political battleground
The Bolsonaro family also supported American terrorist designations for two of Brazil’s most powerful criminal organizations.
The groups, Primeiro Comando da Capital and Comando Vermelho, have long been associated with organized crime and violence.
According to Reuters, Bolsonaro allies believed that branding the gangs as terrorist organizations would increase political pressure on Lula, whose government had faced criticism over public security.
Pita reportedly supported the proposal.
In May 2025, he participated in an American delegation that visited Jair Bolsonaro at his home in Brasília while the former president awaited trial.
The delegation also included David Gamble, then a senior State Department sanctions official.
Following the visit, Pita asked American sanctions personnel to examine whether measures resembling those used against Mexican cartels could be applied to Brazilian gangs, according to a former official.
The idea later received further attention in Washington.
In May 2026, Flávio Bolsonaro met with Beattie and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau to discuss the designations.
Right-wing commentator Paulo Figueiredo subsequently published photographs of the meeting and described its purpose as addressing “the urgency of designating the PCC and the Comando Vermelho as foreign terrorist organizations.”
The State Department announced the designations the following day.
Reuters could not determine how much influence Beattie or Pita personally exercised over the final decision.
Washington insists its policies serve American interests
The White House declined to comment directly on the investigation and referred questions to the State Department.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott did not address the specific allegations concerning Beattie and Pita.
Instead, he defended the administration’s broader policies.
“All actions taken by the United States against narco-traffickers and to protect free speech are to defend the rights and lives of the American people,” Pigott said.
“The Brazilian people have the right to choose their leaders through free and fair elections.”
The statement presented the administration’s actions as matters of national security and civil liberties, rather than electoral intervention.
A Treasury official also said Bessent and Rubio were “fully aligned on the administration’s foreign policy.”
Lula’s office did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Former State Department official warns of political interference
Among those who spoke to Reuters was Orna Blum, who previously led the State Department’s Brazil and Southern Cone office.
Blum retired last year after disagreeing with the Trump administration’s direction.
She acknowledged that Washington has legitimate reasons to defend its interests abroad.
But she argued that those interests should not extend to manipulating another country’s democratic processes.
Washington “has every right to pursue its economic and strategic interests,” she said.
“But when American foreign policy instruments are used to pressure another democracy over the legal fate of a political ally, the line between diplomacy and political intervention has been crossed.”
Her comments capture the central controversy surrounding the reported campaign.
American officials can legitimately criticize foreign governments, advocate human rights and pursue security objectives.
Whether those same instruments were deliberately deployed to benefit a preferred presidential candidate is the question raised by Reuters’ investigation.
Trump’s pressure campaign encounters resistance
Several American measures against Brazil proved politically and economically contentious.
In July 2025, Washington revoked visas belonging to eight Brazilian Supreme Court justices and announced tariffs of 50 percent on Brazilian goods.
The administration cited what it characterized as the persecution of Jair Bolsonaro.
Reuters could not determine whether Beattie or Pita played a role in those additional decisions.
Brazilian political analysts told the news agency that some of the pressure appeared to produce results opposite to those allegedly intended.
The Supreme Court continued its proceedings against Bolsonaro despite the American measures.
Meanwhile, the tariffs reportedly helped Lula politically by encouraging a backlash against perceived foreign interference.
Major businesses with commercial interests in both countries also opposed the trade restrictions.
Among them was meatpacking company JBS, controlled by Brazilian billionaires Wesley and Joesley Batista.
Washington eventually reduced the severity of some of its tariff measures.
Beattie experienced a further setback in March 2026, when Brazilian authorities barred him from entering the country to visit Jair Bolsonaro in prison.
Trump celebrates a narrow election result
Despite the tensions, the Bolsonaro family remains a significant force in Brazilian politics.
Flávio Bolsonaro narrowly finished ahead of Lula in the first round of the presidential election earlier this month, setting up Sunday’s runoff.
Trump welcomed the result when speaking to reporters.
“Close, but a very, very big victory,” the American president said.
“Amazing, actually.”
Mario Braga, a Latin America analyst at risk intelligence firm RANE, suggested that Trump’s decision not to formally endorse Bolsonaro might reflect concerns about the political consequences of appearing to interfere.
Public American support for one candidate could potentially benefit Lula by reinforcing his warnings about foreign involvement, Braga argued.
