Bolsonaro wants judge in his cabinet

Brazilian presidentelect Jair Bolsonaro has revisited his most contentious campaign promises, calling for looser gun laws, urging a high-profile anticorruption judge to join his government and promising to cut government advertising for media that “lie.”

In interviews with TV stations and on social media, Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old former Army captain, who won 55% of Sunday’s vote and will be sworn in on January 1, made clear he would not waste time in pushing through his conservative agenda. Bolsonaro, who ran on a law-and-order platform, said he wants Sergio Moro, the judge who has overseen the sprawling “Car Wash” corruption trials and convicted former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of graft, to join his government as justice minister.

Barring that, he said he would nominate him to the Supreme Court. The next vacancy on the court is expected in 2020.

Moro did not respond to requests for comment.

But Ascânio Seleme, editor in chief for the O Globo newspaper, wrote in a Tuesday blog post on the publication’s website that Moro should not accept the offer to become justice minister.

He has too much work to do on pending corruption trials, Seleme wrote.

WHITE HOUSE DISMISSES TRUMP COMPARISON

olsonaro better not get too carried away with comparisons of him to the US president.

“There’s only one Donald Trump,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders deadpanned on Monday, pouring cold water on claims -- both from supporters and opponents -- that Brazil has produced its very own tropical Trump.

Despite this, there were signs of a budding Trump-Bolsonaro friendship after the former paratrooper’s election on Sunday.

Washington has avoided any comment on Bolsonaro’s long history of making comments seen as sexist, homophobic and racist, as well as openly praising torture and military rule under Brazil’s 1964-1985 dictatorship. Trump was off the mark with a phone call to congratulate Bolsonaro.