Revenge against Lava Jato is not over

The confirmation of the impeachment of Deputy Deltan Dallagnol (Podemos-PR) by the Chamber last Tuesday (6) marked the beginning of the final phase of dismantling Lava Jato. The list of upcoming attacks against the operation and its protagonists includes requests for the impeachment of former judge and senator Sérgio Moro (União Brasil-PR), testimony in Congress by one of his and Dallagnol’s biggest rivals and even the attempt to open a commission parliamentary inquiry (CPI) to investigate them.

“The system works not to fight corruption. The focus of the system is: revenge against those who dared to put corrupt politicians in jail. It was like this in Italy and it is like this in Brazil”, said Dallagnol on his social networks on Thursday (8), referring to the similar outcome of the Clean Hands operation in the European country.

That same day, the former head of the Lava Jato task force had suffered yet another setback: the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) rescued a conviction by the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) against Deltan, from last year, demanding that he reimbursed the public coffers in R$ 2.8 million that were paid by the Public Ministry in per diems and air tickets granted to prosecutors who were part of the Lava Jato task force.

The TCU ruling on the case had been annulled by the Justice of Paraná, on the grounds that Dallagnol did not receive any amount and was also not responsible for releasing the funds. However, the Advocacy General of the Union (AGU) asked for the annulment of the sentence favorable to the then deputy, which was accepted by the STJ by 6 votes against 5.

In the same week, the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Dias Toffoli granted habeas corpus to lawyer Tacla Duran, an enemy of Lava Jato, to participate in a hearing in the Chamber, convened by left-wing deputies. Tacla Duran, who now lives in Spain, accused Moro and Dallagnol of stalking and extortion, but never provided evidence to substantiate her allegations.

Moro had requested the arrest of Tacla Duran in 2016, accusing him of being an Odebrecht operator. The case surfaced again this year, when the then Lava Jato judge, Eduardo Fernando Appio – currently removed from the 13th Court of Curitiba – revoked Duran’s arrest warrant. Subsequently, the arrest order was reinstated by Judge Marcelo Malucelli, from the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRF4). With the habeas corpus, Toffoli guaranteed that the lawyer will not be arrested when he comes to Brazil to participate in the hearing in the Chamber.

The STF minister also ordered the suspension of proceedings involving businessman and former deputy from Paraná Tony Garcia in the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba and in the TRF4, after he accused Senator Sergio Moro of using him as an “undercover agent” to “persecute the PT”. Garcia had signed a plea agreement in 2004, signed by Moro, but which was suspended in 2022, at the request of the Public Ministry. The case reached the STF after Judge Eduardo Appio – currently removed from the 13th Court of Curitiba on suspicion of having threatened the son of a TRF4 judge – submitted the charges against Moro to the Supreme Court. The senator reacted to Garcia’s accusations, saying that his reports are untrue and unsupported by evidence.

While the siege closes against Lava Jato, the symbolic image of the current moment of hostilities was the celebration of the impeachment of Dallagnol by lawyer Antônio Carlos de Almeida Castro, Kakay, alongside former minister José Dirceu in Paris, making the gesture of the “L”, in reference to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), who in an interview given in March revealed his obsession with “screwing” Sérgio Moro since he was in prison. Kakay said that the operation is not over and defended that former federal prosecutor Dallagnol and former judge Moro be held criminally responsible.

In the opinion of the constitutionalist Vera Chemim, the setbacks suffered in the fight against corruption are equivalent to the application of the “private revenge” of primitive times, with the difference of using the state structure, including the public powers, to materialize it.

To enshrine the climate of revenge, on Wednesday (7), the same minister Toffoli denied the request of Dallagnol’s defense to suspend the decision of the TSE that annulled his candidacy registration and determined that Luiz Carlos Hauly (Podemos) be sworn in place .

Moro defends mandate against attacks from several fronts

One day after the TSE rejected the candidacy and canceled Dallagnol’s mandate in the Chamber, Senator Sérgio Moro had a private conversation in Brasília with Minister Alexandre de Moraes, president of the court.

Moro faces several fronts against him in the Three Powers, which may result in the impeachment of his term in the Senate. The main one is an ongoing lawsuit at the TSE, moved by the PL. In addition, there is a request for the installation of a parliamentary commission of inquiry (CPI) to investigate Lava Jato, proposed at the end of March by deputy Washington Quaquá (PT-RJ). If the Electoral Justice does not impose the same fate as Dallagnol on the senator, government deputies will invest in the collegiate to remove him. There are also rumors that senators and jurists linked to Lula are considering requesting the removal of the former judge from the Senate Ethics Council.

Quaquá, who is PT’s national vice-president, argued that it was necessary to investigate alleged “crimes” committed by former judge Sergio Moro, claiming that he adopted illegal and criminal methods in the operation, in addition to having used it for political purposes, causing damage to the democracy, economy and institutions.

“Dallagnol was too late. And as a criminal he tried to hide in the Chamber, contrary to the law. He was impeached and well impeached ”, celebrated Quaquá, in an interview with the Metrópoles portal. “I’m gathering signatures for the CPI, which will target Rosângela (Moro), Dallagnol and Moro. Moro, now all that’s missing is you”, he added.

In the CPI application, Quaquá also requests the inclusion of Judge Marcelo Bretas, who commanded Lava Jato in Rio de Janeiro, as a target of the investigation. Bretas is already facing disciplinary proceedings at the National Council of Justice (CNJ) related to his dispatches in the operation, having been removed from his duties in March, in a secret session of the CNJ. For the CPI to be opened, the application needs to obtain 171 supporting signatures and authorization from the mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL).

But not only the left is celebrating the setbacks of Lava Jato protagonists. Valdemar Costa Neto, national president of the PL, the party of former president Jair Bolsonaro, expressed his support for the impeachment of Deltan Dallagnol, and even defended sanctions against Sergio Moro in the Electoral Court.

On Monday (5), he said: “They (Dallagnol and Moro) have exceeded the limits of the law and will pay dearly”. He added that it was his duty as president of the party to defend Paulo Martins (PL), placed second in the election for senator in Paraná, won by Moro. He believes that the senator may have problems in the Electoral Justice because he spent money on the campaign for President of the Republic before the party conventions. The PL is the author of this action against Moro.

According to Eduardo Galvão, coordinator of the MBA in Public Policy and Institutional Relations at Ibmec-DF, Lava Jato played an important role in a historic moment, when the fight against corruption was a priority on society’s political agenda. “However, the issue has lost relevance in the face of other emerging emergencies, such as the pandemic and inflation, which have become the main concerns,” he said.

Collusion of powers managed to extinguish Lava Jato, says jurist

For jurists consulted by Gazeta do Povo, the current chapter of attacks suffered by Lava Jato enshrines the advance of the revenge of those convicted by the operation.

Vera Chemim, a lawyer specialized in constitutional law and master in public administrative law from the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), believes that “the system managed to put an end to Lava Jato, in a kind of collusion between the Powers”, in a collective effort to rescue the status quo of politicians involved in crimes against the Public Administration.

According to her, since 2019, a combination of unconventional elements was expected to close the cycle in which attempts were made, in vain, to oxygenate the public administration. She fears, however, that “the tentacles of the old and ancient politics are reborn even stronger, to the point of extirpating any manifestation contrary to its existence”.

In the current situation, she highlights, shortly after the rise of the Lula government, a series of measures to eliminate Deputy Dallagnol from the political scene, which should be followed by others targeting Moro. “The still-not-satisfied system intends to gather all the forces to try to criminally condemn the former protagonists of Lava Jato, as well as it has annulled all the processes arising from the operation, through recent jurisprudential precedents of the STF. “Such assumptions together with political polarization allow us to affirm that Lava Jato is over,” he said.

Vera also said that the country is witnessing the application of “private revenge” from primitive times, with the difference of using the state structure to carry it out. At the same time, the application of a “criminal law of the enemy” is observed, in which the system transforms heroes into villains, giving them “special” treatment in relation to other citizens, relativizing or even eliminating fundamental rights and guarantees. Thus, protagonists and supporting actors of Lava Jato are not protected by the Constitution, unlike actors who “were involved in illegal activities and who are now part of the administrative and political structure of the State”.

Jurist Fabricio Rebelo, in turn, recalled that the Lava Jato operation acquired political contours that are now decisive for the persecution suffered by Moro and Dallagnol. “Unfortunately, it really seems that Lava Jato, which should have been restricted to legal issues, has slipped into a political approach, now being determinant in the persecution of those who were in charge of the operation”, he commented.

Critics of the operation condemn alleged excesses and political ends

For Cláudio Caivano, defender of 15 protesters arrested in the acts of vandalism on January 8, Lava Jato is paying a high price for its own contradictions. According to him, the visible part of the operation was “the herculean and fair fight against systemic corruption, white-collar crime, the use of public funds for private ends”. But what was hidden, according to him, was his use of the law for a political purpose, against due legal process and with the endorsement of the STF at the time. “Lava-Jato’s legacy is being destroyed, along with democracy,” said the lawyer.

In a recent interview with the Perfil portal, the Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, expressed harsh criticism of Operation Lava Jato, claiming that it harmed the business of important Brazilian contractors, especially Odebrecht, and resulted in the mass unemployment of three million people. Aras argued that the operation criminalized politics and caused significant losses in business and corporate legacies, which are difficult to recover. In addition, he pointed out that Lava Jato allowed foreign corporations to occupy the space left by investment in infrastructure in the country, expanding the foreign presence.

Aras’ statements were refuted by prosecutor Rodrigo Chemim, in a recent interview with Gazeta do Povo. “It’s complete nonsense, almost as if to suggest that not interfering with corruption would be better, tolerating it as if it had been the grease in the country’s economic cogs since the 1970s.”