Moraes Decides Who Guards Bolsonaro, and Who Gets to Visit Him

BRASILIA — Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes gave the Institutional Security Office (GSI), the presidency’s security agency, five days to tell him who currently guards former President Jair Bolsonaro, Jovem Pan columnist Bruno Pinheiro reported on Friday, Nov. 13. The order followed a request from Sérgio Rocha Cordeiro, a former member of Bolsonaro’s security team, to return to work at the house where he serves his sentence. The same day, Bolsonaro’s lawyers asked Moraes to let him receive Valdemar Costa Neto, president of his Liberal Party (PL).

Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months in the case the Supreme Court calls a coup plot. He has been held at his home in Brasília since late March, when Moraes granted a humanitarian measure after treatment for pneumonia, extended in July with no end date. He wears an ankle monitor, has no cellphone or social media, and every visit needs the justice’s approval.

Who stands at the door

In his second attempt, Cordeiro offered a 90-day trial with fixed hours and oversight. In September, Moraes had barred him and another former aide, Max Guilherme Machado de Moura, from Bolsonaro’s support staff. Instead of lifting the ban, he asked the GSI for the current roster. Brazilian law entitles former presidents to a security detail from the GSI, and in March Moraes had already made the defense separate federal agents from private guards, Folha de Pernambuco reported.

Why it matters

The man who led Brazil until 2022, whose defeat that year millions of Brazilians still attribute to electronic ballot fraud, now needs a judge’s signature to decide who protects him and who sits at his table. For American readers, picture a single federal judge choosing which Secret Service agents may guard a former president and whether his party’s chairman may come by. In Brazil, that judge also led the case that convicted him.

The visit

The petition, signed by six lawyers including Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, cites “the need for direct dialogue” with the PL leader at a date to be arranged, Metrópoles reported. Valdemar last visited on Oct. 29, with authorization, for less than an hour and a half. O Globo reports the request comes amid negotiations over the Senate presidency, which the PL plans to contest in February 2027 with Sen. Rogério Marinho, who has promised not to shelve impeachment requests against Supreme Court justices. Moraes had not ruled on the visit as of Friday.

A medical report sent to Moraes the same day says Bolsonaro had a hiccup episode of about one hour on Thursday that required medication, and still shows unsteady balance and daytime drowsiness, which the doctors attribute to his continuous-use medication. It recommends fall precautions, muscle-strengthening exercises and a strict diet against reflux, and says his blood pressure is controlled.

The record

Confirmed: the order to the GSI, Cordeiro’s request, the September ban, the petition and the medical report as described by Jovem Pan. Not established: what the GSI will answer, whether Moraes will grant either request, and what the two men would discuss. The link to the Senate race is O Globo’s reporting, not language from the filing. This newspaper adds no medical assessment to the doctors’ findings.

A former president’s right to a security detail is written in law. Who fills it, and who may talk politics with him, is now settled one ruling at a time by the justice who ran his trial. The GSI answers in five days, but the decision, as with the Jan. 8 political prisoners sent home this week, will again be Moraes’s alone.

The Watch Post Daily will continue to follow this story. Sources: Jovem Pan (two columns by Bruno Pinheiro, Nov. 13, 2026), Metrópoles, O Antagonista, O Globo, Folha de Pernambuco, Diario de Pernambuco, SBT News.

Featured image: Coletiva de Imprensa – Ex-presidente da República Jair Bolsonaro by Edilson Rodrigues/Agência Senado, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.