Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others were indicted by federal police Thursday on charges of attempting a coup to keep him in office after being defeated in the 2022 elections.

The Associated Press reported that the findings would be delivered to Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday, where they will be referred to Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet to either throw out the investigation or agree with the charges and put Bolsonaro on trial.

Bolsonaro, who leans right politically, has denied claims that he tried to remain in office after his defeat in 2022 to left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

After losing the election, Bolsonaro launched an aggressive campaign against the Brazilian government that claimed the election was stolen.

BOLSONARO BANNED FROM RUNNING FOR OFFICE FOR 8 YEARS

One week after Lula took office, Bolsonaro’s supporters raided and trashed the buildings of the South American country’s Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential palace. Hundreds of them are expected to stand trial.

Since his defeat, Bolsonaro has faced a series of legal threats.

In June 2023, electoral judges voted to ban the former leader from public leadership for eight years after determining he attacked the public’s confidence in the country’s democratic institutions. The court also deemed Bolsonaro a threat to political tensions.

FORMER BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT JAIR BOLSONARO INDICTED BY FEDERAL POLICE IN UNDECLARED DIAMONDS CASE: AP

A Brazilian Supreme Court justice has ordered federal police to question ex-President Jair Bolsonaro over his supporters’ attacks on government buildings following socialist successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s inauguration. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

The decision was made with four out of seven votes by the Superior Electoral Court.

In July, Bolsonaro was indicted by Brazil’s federal police for alleged money laundering and criminal association in connection with diamonds he allegedly received from Saudi Arabia while he was in office.

It was the second formal accusation of criminal wrongdoing against Bolsonaro, having also been charged in March with forging his and others’ COVID-19 vaccine records.

The former president denies any involvement in either allegation.

On Tuesday, Brazilian police arrested four military and a federal police officer accused of plotting a coup that included plans to overthrow the government following the 2022 election, and allegedly kill Lula and other top officials.

Fox News Digital’s Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and Kyle Schmidbauer, along with The Associated Press, contributed to this report.

Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said he is “not available” to run as a candidate for chancellor in February’s snap election, saying he would instead support Olaf Scholz’s re-election bid.

The announcement, which Pistorius made in a video posted to social media channels belonging to the Social Democratic Party (SDP), ends days of speculation about him replacing Scholz.

“I have emphasized this over and over in recent weeks and I’m saying it again as clearly as possible; in Olaf Scholz, we have an excellent chancellor,” Pistorius, currently polling as Germany’s most popular politician, said.

“He led a coalition that would have been challenging in normal times through possibly the biggest crisis of recent decades.”

He added not running was his “sovereign and entirely personal” decision.

Collapse of the coalition

Chancellor Olaf Scholz called a snap election after the collapse of the governing ‘Traffic Light Coalition’ at the start of November.

As per German election rules, the Bundestag will hold a government confidence vote on December 16th before voters head to the polls on February 23.  

Germany’s coalition government, made up of the SDP, the FDP and the Greens, collapsed on 7 November after Scholz fired the then Finance Minister and FDP party head, Christian Lindner.

“He (Lindner) has broken my trust too many times”, Scholz told the press at the time, adding that there is “no more basis of trust for further cooperation” as the FDP leader is “more concerned with his own clientele and the survival of his own party.”

The coalition had governed Germany since 2021 and its collapse meant Scholz’s government no longer had a majority in parliament.

The SDP confirmed on Thursday that they would nominate Scholz as their lead candidate for chancellor next week.

But according to current opinion polls, the chances of Germany’s next chancellor belonging to the centre-left Social Democrats is highly unlikely.

Most pollsters put the centre-right Christian Democrats at more than double the level of support of the SDP.

A tally published on Thursday by political research group Infratest dimap shows the CDU/CSU polling at 33% with the SPD trailing behind at 14%, level with the Greens.