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Bolsonaro using medals to celebrate allies, family, himself

FILE - Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro receives the Maua Merit Medal for services to the national infrastructure, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 15, 2019. Bolsonaro’s benevolence in decorating ideological allies, ministers, loyalists and family comes as little surprise — sometimes on questioned grounds. Bolsonaro himself has received six medals from his own administration. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File) FILE - Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, right, decorates White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner with Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 30, 2018. Donald Trump’s son-in-law received Mexico’s highest honor for helping to renegotiate the North American trade agreement. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File) FILE - President Barack Obama awards the 2010 Medal of Freedom to Warren Buffett during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Feb. 15, 2011. Obama gave out more Presidential Medals of Freedom than any U.S. leader since its creation. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) FILE - Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, left, honors his Environment Minister Ricardo Salles with the Order of Rio Branco, the highest diplomacy award, during a ceremony marking at the Itamaraty Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Oct. 22, 2020. In Bolsonaro’s cabinet, a medal has practically come with the job. The nation’s three medals regarded as most prestigious are the Order of Defense Merit, Order of Rio Branco and the Medal of Victory, and Bolsonaro has awarded more than three-quarters of current or former ministers at least one. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File) FILE - Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, right, raises the arm of his son Eduardo Bolsonaro during a protest, in Brasilia, Brazil, May 17, 2020. Bolsonaro, who has distributed at least 76 of the three top medals to ministers since 2019, more than any of his three elected predecessors throughout their two terms, also gave three medals of various sorts to his wife Michelle and senator son Flavio. His son Eduardo, a lawmaker, has been honored with at least six. (AP Photo/Andre Borges, File) FILE - Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro puts out his arm to receive the Order of Military Judicial Merit from Adm. Marcus Vinicius Oliveira dos Santos, in Brasilia, Brazil, March 28, 2019. Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has accumulated medals of varying importance in the three years since he took office, mostly from the armed forces. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File) FILE - This handout photo provided by the Ministry of Communication shows Tesla and SpaceX chief executive officer Elon Musk wearing the Defense Order of Merit medal as he shakes hands with Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, in Porto Feliz, Brazil, May 20, 2022. Musk is the first foreign civilian without a government position to receive the Brazilian Defense Ministry honor since its creation, (Cleverson Oliveira/Ministry of Communication via AP, File) Veteran ethnographer Sydney Possuelo poses for a photo next to a painting made in his honor for the work he carried out in the demarcation of Indigenous territories, in his apartment in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, May 30, 2022. Possuelo, who once headed the nation's Indigenous agency, was shocked when he heard Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro received the Medal of Indigenous Merit. He protested by returning his own medal, which he received 35 years prior. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
Bolsonaro using medals to celebrate allies, family, himself