Aras tries to approach Lula at the end of his term as head of the PGR

The episodes of the invasion and depredation of the seats of the Powers on January 8 marked a change in the attitude of the Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras. Since the attack, ministers of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and Executive authorities have begun, behind the scenes, to criticize him for considering that he would have been silent in the face of threats of violence against institutions, largely due to his alignment with the former president. Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

That is why, in the last three months, Aras has sought to emphasize the defense of democracy, social pacification and, with that, he has also tried to get closer to the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who always cites the episode as an attempt coup against his election.

Aras is at the end of his second term at the head of the PGR, which ends in September. Behind the scenes, members of the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) consider that he may still seek a reappointment with Lula, for two more years in charge of the body; indicate a close successor; or, at least, end his tenure with a more positive image.

It is up to the President of the Republic to indicate the attorney general, and Lula has already said that he does not intend, this time, to follow the triple list, composed of the three most voted names for the category. Aras was chosen by Bolsonaro out of the list, breaking a tradition followed since 2003.

In 2021, when he was reappointed for a second biennium at the head of the PGR, Aras had broad support in the Senate, including the PT, especially due to his work to dismantle Operation Lava Jato. But, so far, there are no signs that Lula wants to keep him in office.

Since January 8, Aras has been committed to showing that the PGR is taking action. He created a group and appointed a deputy prosecutor, Carlos Frederico Santos, who has already reported to the STF approximately 1,400 people accused of involvement in the acts. The first one hundred complaints were analyzed by the ministers of the Court, who made the demonstrators defendants in criminal proceedings. Another 200 denouncements should be considered by the ministers as of early this Tuesday (25).

On April 12, when the president of the STF, Rosa Weber, announced the first trial, using harsh words (“despicable attack” on the “day of infamy”), Aras, present at the session, asked for the floor to set a position for the punishment of the protesters, Bolsonaro voters and Lula opponents. “I could not fail to register the association with all of Your Excellency’s manifestation on the attacks on our democracy”, said the attorney general.

Other signals were issued. The most recent was a demonstration by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) to maintain a crime report in the STF against Senator Sergio Moro (União-PR) for alleged acts committed when he was a Lava Jato judge.

Since assuming the Presidency, Lula has not hidden the grudge he harbors against Moro, the first to condemn him in the operation – in a recent interview, he said that he only thought about taking revenge on the former judge when he was in jail and said that it was “a frame ” an investigation to thwart an attempt by the PCC against his life and that of his family.

The crime news against Moro, however, should not, strictly speaking, be processed by the STF, for two reasons. It contains an indictment of lawyer Rodrigo Tacla Duran for alleged extortion in 2016, when Moro was a magistrate in Curitiba. The STF has already established that cases that occurred before the parliamentary mandate and without connection with the elected office must be processed in the first instance. In addition, the accusation against Moro was already discarded by the PGR itself last year.

Even so, the body considered that Moro would have tried to interfere in proceedings against Tacla Duran – accused of laundering money for Odebrecht – as Minister of Justice and as a senator, which would justify his investigation in the STF. The case should be analyzed by the successor of Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, who retired on April 11. The most quoted for the vacancy is Cristiano Zanin, Lula’s personal lawyer and Moro’s biggest enemy in Lava Jato.

Aras changed his mind about the State-owned Law in a few days

Another pro-Lula signal was given at the beginning of March, when, from one week to the next, Aras changed his understanding of the State-owned Law in a Supreme Court action.

Approved in 2016, the law prevents politicians from taking over the management of public companies without first going through a three-year quarantine outside of positions in the Executive or in charge of electoral campaigns. The objective is to prevent corruption, as revealed in Lava Jato, in which state-owned resources were diverted to parties that controlled Petrobras boards.

At the end of February, Aras sent an opinion to the STF defending the law, saying that it sought to provide greater effectiveness in the management of state-owned companies, guarantee probity and integrity by avoiding conflicts of interest, with choices of directors “guided by criteria of professionalism and technical qualification, aiming to combat the undue interference of external factors to the corporate purposes and functions”.

The following week, however, Aras changed his mind. On March 5, he sent a new opinion, this time in favor of ending restrictions. He argued that the restrictions violated the “fundamental rights of participation in party-political life and active citizenship in the management of public affairs”. “It constitutes a kind of punishment for political-partisan participation, with deprivation of rights in the face of political conviction”, he said in the new demonstration.

Based on this, Lewandowski, who was the rapporteur for the action against the quarantine, voted and later granted an injunction authorizing politicians to take over state-owned companies. The decision pleased Lula, who seeks to reward parties that support the government with positions in state-owned companies, and left-wing and Centrão parties, who want to control billionaire budgets of public companies.

Nods to the STF

The attorney general has also sought greater sympathy among STF ministers using words. At the opening ceremony of the judicial year, on February 1st, Rosa Weber reopened the court’s plenary rebuilt after the acts of vandalism on January 8th. The occasion was marked by strong symbolism, with the minister repeating that, despite the depredation, democracy remained “unshaken”.

Aras drew attention by stating: “citizens of the Democratic State of Law need to say every day: ‘democracy, I love you, I love you, I love you’”.

On April 12, he accentuated the sentimental tone during a support in the plenary of the Court on the possibility or not of hospitals to carry out DNA tests of newborns to avoid the exchange of babies. The PGR defended the unconstitutionality of the measure, for violating privacy. At a certain point, he began to conjecture about the risks of artificial intelligence.

Addressing Minister Luís Roberto Barroso, he said: “Perhaps there will be a time soon when we will have to have empathy classes in schools. Empathy, solidarity, fraternity, and other feelings that are part of a generation, which I believe is well represented here in this Court, which is the feeling of being part of a single humanity, of a civilizing process rich in its diversity, its pluralism , for its multiculturalism”, he stated.