A car took the embattled ex-leader back to the federal police headquarters where he is serving his 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup d'etat aimed at keeping him in office.

That sentence is from the Associated Press reporting today about Brazil. The former president, Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump pal and Mar-a-Lago visitor, is in prison

after he attempted to overturn the results of the presidential election that he lost in 2022.

A punishment that so enraged Donald Trump that Trump put a 50% tariff on Brazil in an effort to try to extort Brazil into pardoning Bolsonaro.

Brazil didn't cave, and so tonight, in a democratic country, an ex-president coup doer is in prison.

It is possible. It is even democratic.

A president is not above the law, at least not in that country.

It could have been that way here. We had a special prosecutor, Jack Smith, who led the criminal prosecution against Donald Trump for the attack on the Capitol and Trump's role in the conspiracy

to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory.

House Republicans subpoenaed Jack Smith and then were too afraid to let him testify publicly.

Instead, they deposed him behind closed doors and the House Judiciary Committee in the

dead of the holiday break just put out the video and transcript of what Jack Smith said.

The evidence here made clear that President Trump was, by a large measure, the most culpable

and most responsible person in this conspiracy. these crimes were committed for his

benefit the attack that happened at the Capitol as part of this case does not

happen without him the other co-conspirators were doing this for his benefit so

in terms of why we would pursue a case against him, I entirely disagree with any characterization

that our work was in any way meant to hamper him in the presidential election.

So did you develop evidence that President Trump, you know, was responsible for the violence at the Capitol on January 6th?

So our view of the evidence was that he caused it and that he exploited it and that it was foreseeable to him.

The evidence against Trump was enough for a grand jury to indict him, and perhaps it would have been enough for a jury to convict him.

But no jury was given that chance because conservatives on the Supreme Court handed Trump, in effect, a get-out-of-jail-free card.

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