Destruction of Lava Jato continues under Lula with retaliation against enemies

The return of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) to power intensified the process of dismantling Lava Jato that started in 2019. But now, in addition to the investigations and convictions being annulled, the Judiciary elite has started a process of retaliation against the protagonists of the largest anti-corruption operation in the country. The most obvious case was the impeachment, without legal provision, of former prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol’s mandate as federal deputy. The next target, already announced in the press, is former judge and senator Sergio Moro.

The annulment of Lula’s convictions, in 2021, by the Federal Supreme Court (STF), followed by his electoral victory last year, celebrated by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), reinforced as never before the fallacious narrative of Lava Jato’s enemies that the operation boiled down to political persecution, as if there had not been numerous proven allegations of corruption against the PT and his surroundings during his other terms.

A relevant part of the decisions against Dallagnol and Moro come from ministers who are very close to the political world and interested in gaining access to higher posts in the Judiciary or influencing Lula’s nominations.

The former prosecutor, for example, was impeached by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) based on the vote of Benedito Gonçalves, minister appointed by Lula to the Superior Court of Justice in 2008 and who has been a candidate for a vacancy in the STF for 20 years. He gained even more traction when he led the trial to make former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) ineligible.

Another interested party in the STF who handed down decisions against Dallagnol was Luís Felipe Salomão, appointed by Lula in 2008 to the STJ. Last year, he spearheaded the decision that condemned the former prosecutor to indemnify the president in BRL 75,000 because of the press conference in 2016 in which he presented him as the head of a criminal organization.

This year, as National Inspector of Justice, a position he occupies in the National Council of Justice (CNJ), he decided to inspect the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, especially after the removal of Judge Eduardo Appio, who had been reversing decisions of the operation. Salomão, in addition, spearheaded the February decision by the CNJ, which removed from office federal judge Marcelo Bretas, who conducted the Lava Jato processes in Rio de Janeiro.

Other measures against Moro and Dallagnol

In June of this year, STJ minister Humberto Martins, who at least until last year aimed to reach the STF, headed the trial that revalidated last year’s decision, by the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU), which charges Dallagnol R$ 2.8 million for per diems and tickets paid by the Federal Public Ministry to other members of the defunct Curitiba task force. Martins was accompanied by, among other ministers, João Otávio de Noronha and Mauro Campbell, also always quoted to take a seat on the STF.

The TCU’s decision, incidentally, was pivotal on the body’s president, Bruno Dantas, another person interested in a vacancy for the STF. This month, to intensify the campaign against Lava Jato, he asked the Court for access to the alleged messages exchanged by former prosecutors. He says he was quoted in one of the conversations and now wants to use it to prosecute Moro and Dallagnol – this goal collides with an elementary principle of law, which prohibits the use of illicit evidence – in this case, obtained clandestinely by hackers – to accuse someone.

Sergio Moro’s frying, in turn, has as one of the main exponents Gilmar Mendes, dean of the STF and the most influential in the political environment. In April of this year, at the instigation of the minister, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) denounced the senator because of an old video, disseminated over the weekend on social networks, in which he joked, at a June party, that he could “buy a habeas corpus” from Gilmar. He was accused of slander.

Within the STF, who is also following Moro is Dias Toffoli, who seeks to reconnect with Lula after a period of distance. In June, the minister annulled all the evidence that weighed against lawyer Rodrigo Tacla Duran, accused of money laundering, but who accuses Moro of extortion, and ordered the PGR to investigate statements by businessman and former deputy Antônio Celso Garcia, known as Tony Garcia. He says he acted as Moro’s “undercover agent” in the Banestado case in the early 2000s.

Before Toffoli, Ricardo Lewandowski, who retired in April, opened an investigation against Moro based on accusations by Tacla Duran, which were never proven. The case could be conducted in the STF by Cristiano Zanin, the new minister of the STF chosen by Lula and former opponent of Moro in Lava Jato.

Before leaving the STF, Lewandowski, who has always been critical of Lava Jato, also contributed to further demolish the legacy of the operation. After annulling evidence collected from Odebrecht against Lula, he extended that decision to several other Lava Jato defendants, putting an end to inquiries and actions to which they responded in the first instance of Justice. In this wave, vice president Geraldo Alckmin (PSB), the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes (PSD), former senator Edison Lobão, former Minister of Planning Paulo Bernardo, former president of Fiesp Paulo Skaf, admiral Othon Pinheiro da Silva, former president of Eletronuclear, among others, benefited.

Other powerful people also benefited from the dismantling of Lava Jato in the STF. In June, the First Panel of the STF rejected a corruption complaint against the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), based on the award-winning delation of former money changer Alberto Youssef. The case dates back to 2012, when an advisor to Lira was caught at Congonhas airport, in São Paulo, with R$106,400 in cash, before leaving for Brasília. When analyzing the accusation, André Mendonça, Dias Toffoli, Luiz Fux, Roberto Barroso and Alexandre de Moraes concluded that there was no evidence against Lira, thus following the opinion of the PGR, which decided to withdraw the accusations it had initially made against the deputy.

Appio at the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba

Another part of the Lava Jato dismantling began to be operated in the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba by federal judge Eduardo Appio. A notorious critic of Moro and Dallagnol, he took office at the beginning of the year, and began to issue decisions that put in check acts considered crucial to the operation. In March, for example, he ordered the arrest of money changer Alberto Youssef, a key character and the first whistleblower in the operation. Based on a new representation from the Revenue, the judge stated that he was hiding amounts that he should return and had an uncertain address. The decision was later overturned by the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRF4).

That same month, Appio took the testimony of lawyer Rodrigo Tacla Duran, which triggered the investigation that later reached the STF against Moro.

In May, the judge summoned Dallagnol to testify about his connection with Walter José Mathias Junior, the attorney in charge of Tacla Duran’s cases, who has always rejected the lawyer’s accusations. In the same month, he ordered the Federal Police to reopen investigations into a clandestine wiretap found by Youssef in his cell in 2014, when he was imprisoned at the corporation’s superintendence in Paraná.

There is a fear of annulment of the money changer’s entire denunciation, if it is considered that he was illegally recorded during his preventive detention.

Appio, however, was removed from Lava Jato in May, after a recording surfaced in which he allegedly tried to intimidate the son of judge Marcelo Malucelli, from TRF4, who had been annulling a good part of his decisions.