RIO DE JANEIRO — President Michel Temer was charged with corruption by Brazil’s prosecutor general late Monday. He was accused of taking a $152,000 bribe via an intermediary, an act that, according to the prosecutor general, Rodrigo Janot, “helped to compromise the image of the Federal Republic of Brazil.”

Coming just days after a poll showed his approval rating at 7 percent — the lowest of any Brazilian president in nearly 30 years — the charge increased pressure on Mr. Temer’s rickety presidency, which has been engulfed in a political crisis since he was secretly recorded seeming to approve efforts to obstruct a corruption investigation during a late-night meeting at his residence in Brasília with Joesley Batista, a wealthy businessman whose family controls a food conglomerate.

Mr. Janot said Mr. Temer had agreed to the $152,000 payment from Mr. Batista in exchange for helping to resolve a problem that a Batista company was having with a power plant it owned. He also said Mr. Temer should pay $3 million in moral damages.

According to the charges, a further $11 million in bribes was promised, according to the charges, to Mr. Temer and Rodrigo Rocha Loures, a close aide to the president who was filmed taking delivery of a suitcase that the authorities say contained the payment. He was then arrested.