When we first watched the surveillance footage, we were stunned.

There was the Hungarian ambassador to Brazil pacing nervously in the embassy. There was Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president — fresh off court orders not to leave the country because of an intensifying criminal investigation — arriving at the gate. There were the embassy staff members hustling to the guest quarters with linens and a coffee maker.

And then, for two days, there was Mr. Bolsonaro wandering the parking lot, looking bored, and there were his security guards fetching pizza.

Given the circumstances — a politician facing potential imprisonment sleeping at a foreign embassy controlled by a political ally — it had all the hallmarks of a man seeking political asylum. Foreign embassies can be considered sovereign territory and have historically been used as refuge for people fleeing custody.

Colleagues and I published an article saying so, complete with clips from the footage.

In response, Mr. Bolsonaro’s lawyers issued a statement saying he had merely gone to the embassy to talk politics. Any suggestion otherwise, they said, was “fake news.”

Alexandre de Moraes, the Brazilian Supreme Court justice leading sprawling criminal investigations into the former president, later decided that Mr. Bolsonaro had not broken the law by sleeping at the embassy.