Jair Bolsonaro had a few difficult years: losses in elections, criminal cases, questionable sleepovers in the embassy. So when he finally received the good news last week — an invitation to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration — it lifted his spirits.

“I feel like a kid again with Trump’s invitation. I got fired up. I don’t even take Viagra anymore,” the former Brazilian president said in an interview on Tuesday, using his trademark sophomoric humor. “Trump’s gesture is something to be proud of, isn’t it? Who is Trump? The most important guy in the world.”

But reality can ruin plans.

The Supreme Court of Brazil confiscated the passport of Mr. Bolsonaro as part of the investigation of did he try to stage a coup d’état? after losing re-election in 2022. To attend Monday’s inauguration, Mr. Bolsonaro had to ask permission from a Supreme Court judge who also his political enemy.

On Wednesday, Brazil’s attorney general recommended that his request be denied. Mr Bolsonaro admitted he would probably watch from home.

That probable split screen – Mr. Trump returns to the most powerful job in the world, while Mr. Bolsonaro is staying at home by court order – summing up the starkly different paths of the two political doppelgangers since they were voted out of power and then accused of fraud.

In 2025, Mr. Trump will go to the White House – and Mr. Bolsonaro could go to prison.

Three separate criminal investigations are closing in on Mr. Bolsonaro, and there are widespread expectations in Brazil — including from Mr. Bolsonaro himself — that he could soon be at the center of one of the most high-profile trials in Brazilian history.

“I am constantly being watched,” said Mr. In a colorful 90-minute interview, Bolsonaro, 69, aired grievances, repeated conspiracy theories and admitted his worries about his future. “I don’t think the system wants me to be locked up; he wants to eliminate me.”

But developments in the United States gave Mr. New hope for Bolsonaro. Mr. Trump, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are leading a global push for free speech, he said, and he hopes it could go some way to changing the political landscape in Brazil. “Social networks decide elections,” he said.

For years, Mr. Bolsonaro has accused Brazil’s Supreme Court judge, Alexandre de Moraes, of censoring conservative voices and persecuting him politically. Justice Moraes has indeed become one of the most aggressive the policemen of the internet in democracy, ordered social networks to block at least 340 accounts in Brazil from 2020, often keeping his reasons under seal.

This led to a conflict with Mr. Muskom last year, which resulted in the referee the ban on Mr. Musk’s social networkX, in Brazil. Mr. Musk at the end recoiled. But slow attracted global attention to Mr. Bolsonaro’s complaints to the Supreme Court of Brazil..

So Mr. Bolsonaro said he was delighted last week when said Mr. Zuckerberg his company would “work with President Trump to counter” foreign governments that want to “censor more.” One of his main examples was the “secret courts” in Latin America “that can order companies to quietly take things down.”

Brazilian officials took it as a shot across the bow. The next day, Judge Moraes warned that social networks can only function in Brazil if they follow Brazilian law, “regardless of the swagger of big tech executives.”

Mr. Bolsonaro had a different view. “I like Zuckerberg,” he said. “Welcome to the world of good people, freedom.”

How will Mr. Trump and tech executives influence his many legal and political challenges? Mr. Bolsonaro was vague. “I will never try to give Trump advice,” he said. “But I hope his policies will really spill over into Brazil.”

Elizabeth Bagley, the outgoing US ambassador to Brazil, said Bolsonaro’s wish that the United States could save him was unbelievable. The US government does not interfere in another country’s judicial process, she said.

Mr. Bolsonaro has bigger problems than censorship. Over the past year, Brazilian federal police have formally charged him with crimes in three separate cases.

In one, police said Mr. Bolsonaro took money from the sale of jewelry he received as a state gift, including diamond Rolex watch from Saudis that his assistant later sold at a mall in Pennsylvania. Mr. Bolsonaro blamed the situation on unclear rules about who owns such gifts.

In a second, the police said he was involved in a conspiracy falsify his Covid-19 vaccination records so he could travel to the United States. Mr. Bolsonaro said he had not received the vaccine, but denied knowledge of attempts to falsify his records.

And in the most serious charge, police said Mr Bolsonaro “planned, acted and had direct and effective control over” conspiracy to carry out a coup d’état.

The Federal Police recently released two reports, a total of 1,105 pageswhich detailed her accusations, including that he personally orchestrated the decree of national emergency aimed at preventing the winner of the election, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office.

Mr. Bolsonaro abandoned the plan after he nominated three Brazilian military leaders and two refused to participate, police said.

In the interview, Mr. Bolsonaro vehemently denied any coup plot – he did hand over power, he said – but admitted he had discussed the decree. “I won’t deny you that,” he said. “But in the second conversation it was abandoned.”

He said he considered imposing martial law because he believed the election was stolen, but Judge Moraes blocked his party a request to cancel the result. Then his team realized that the measure would also have to be approved by Congress. “Forget it,” he said. “We lost.”

However, the police said there was a far darker plan at the heart of the plot: the assassination of Mr. Lula, his vice-president and Judge Moraes. Police have arrested five men they accuse of planning the assassination, four of whom are from an elite Brazilian military unit.

The men, police said, were deployed to Justice Moraes’ neighborhood several weeks before Mr. Lula’s inauguration. They were prepared to kidnap the judge but abandoned the plan after Mr. Bolsonaro failed to declare a state of emergency, police said.

The police said that Mr. Bolsonaro was aware of the plan. The closest link the police discovered was that the plan was printed in the presidential offices and later taken to the presidential residence.

Mr. Bolsonaro has denied knowing anything about such a plot. “Whoever made this possible plan should answer,” he said. “On my part, there was no attempt to execute the three powers.”

He then downplayed the allegations. “Nevertheless, I think it was just another fantasy — a bravura. Nothing. This plan is unworkable. Impossible,” he said. He admitted that he knew the accused leader of the conspiracy. “Everyone is responsible for their actions,” he said. “Though, as far as I know, he didn’t do anything.”

Brazil’s attorney general is considering whether to indict the former president, which would likely lead to a high-profile trial this year and potential jail time.

Claiming his innocence, Mr. Bolsonaro admitted he was worried about his freedom because Judge Moraes could help convict him. “I’m not worried about being judged,” he said. “My concern is who will judge me.” After the police confiscated his passport last year, he slept for two nights in the Hungarian embassy in an apparent desire for asylum.

Brazilian courts have already taken action. Six months after he left office, the Brazilian Electoral Court, headed by Judge Moraes, banned by Mr. Bolsonaro’s access to the office by 2030 due to his attacks on Brazil’s voting systems.

Mr Bolsonaro called the ruling a “rape of democracy” and said he was trying to find a way to run in next year’s presidential election. Two Supreme Court judges appointed by him will lead the electoral court before the elections, he said. Those judges told him, he said, “that my ineligibility was absurd.”

Polls show Mr. Bolsonaro remains by far the most popular conservative candidate in Brazil, but many on the right are looking for new options. Some have speculated about his sons: one, Flávio, 43, is an experienced senator, while the other, Eduardo, 40, is an English-speaking congressman who built close ties with the MAGA movement.

But Mr. Bolsonaro is not yet ready to hand over the keys to his movement. He said that for now he will only support his sons staying in Congress. “To be president here and do the right thing, you have to have a certain amount of experience,” he said as his second son, Carlos, 42, looked on blankly.

If Mr. Bolsonaro made a political comeback, saying he would focus his administration on deepening ties with the United States and moving away from China.

But first, he just wants to go to Washington this weekend. “I’m asking God for the chance to shake his hand,” Mr. Bolsonaro said of Mr. Trump. “I don’t even need a photo, just to shake his hand.”