Served: Jair Bolsonaro Subpoenaed in Hospital Bed

If he's healthy enough to do a 1-hour live stream, he can read and sign a 1-page subpoena, rules Brazil's Supreme Court

On April 11, shortly before Brazil’s Supreme Court was set to begin formally subpoenaing defendants for the January 8, 2023, failed military coup plot trial, Jair Bolsonaro fell ill during a publicity stop in a small town in northeastern Brazil. As defendants like General Augusto Heleno and six others received visits from Justice Department officials, the former president was evacuated by a public health helicopter ambulance from Santa Cruz to Natal, the capital of Rio Grande do Norte.

The Supreme Court paused its subpoena process for Bolsonaro after he was diagnosed with yet another partial intestinal obstruction—the latest episode in a long history of gastrointestinal issues that began with two emergency room visits in April 2018 (five months before his election-season "stabbing" incident).

April, 2018. Prosperity gospel faith healer leads prayer to heal Bolsonaro’s stomach - 5 months before his stabbing incident

After his condition stabilized, Bolsonaro was transferred to Brasília and admitted to Star DF Hospital—a facility notorious as the place where disgraced Bolsonarista congresswoman Carla Zambelli was caught falsely claiming she had cured a nonexistent case of COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine. There, on April 13, the medical team that has treated him since his presidency performed surgery: a lysis of intestinal adhesions and abdominal wall reconstruction.

For the next nine days, Bolsonaro appealed to pity on social media. His supporters insisted that if only that "communist" hadn’t stabbed him, he wouldn’t be suffering—referring to Adélio Bispo de Oliveira, the impoverished, apolitical and mentally ill manual laborerman who, bizarrely, had held a membership at Eduardo Bolsonaro’s expensive Florianópolis gun club for months before the attack.

Then, on April 23, Bolsonaro gave a live interview to the right-wing SBT television network. He railed against the Supreme Court, claimed he was a victim of "lawfare," and spread disinformation about the charges against him, arguing that he couldn’t be held responsible for one of the crimes he is accused of, property damage during the January 8, 2023, invasions of Congress, the Presidential Palace, and the Supreme Court, since he was in Florida at the time. (The charges allege he orchestrated the event’s planning—not that he personally damaged property.)

Later that day, he appeared on a live stream hosted by his son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, and former Formula 1 champion Nelson Piquet—a certified racist. The 1-hour, 45-minute episode opened with a 16-minute commercial by Jair Bolsonaro for his family’s motorcycle helmet company. After 30 minutes of chitchat among other guests, the former president joined, sitting up in a brown T-shirt with a nasogastric tube (which didn’t seem to affect his voice) and spoke for nearly an hour.

The Bolsonaro family stream started with a 16 minute motorcycle helmet commercial staring the former president, who is part owner of the company

The Supreme Court had seen enough. His participation in the live-stream, it declared, "demonstrated that the ex-president was capable of reading and signing a subpoena."

Bolsonaro’s dated signature at bottom of subpoena. Initially issued on April 11, the Supreme Court waited 12 days to serve him, due to his bowel obstruction

When a Justice Department official arrived at his hospital bed to serve him, Bolsonaro asked aides to film as he ranted about Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes. But two minutes in, he screamed so loudly at doctors for urging him to hurry that it became obvious he wasn’t too sick to understand—or sign—the summons.

Bolsonaro repeated, “I’m asking you please” 4 times, with escalating intensity, ending in a belly scream that sounded more like a threat than a polite request

Bolsonaro’s legal team now has five days to prepare its defense arguments. If convicted, he could be sentenced for up to 39 years.