The Folha de São newspaper and journalist Green Grenwald, from The Intercept — the entity responsible for making public the so-called Vaza-Jato, hacking of messages within the Lava Jato operation — they are “pumping” the news with something that may be at least potentially a relevant event involving Minister Alexandre de Moraes.
Both Glen and Folha brought the content, still partial, of a considerable volume of data and information, about Moraes‘ performance, let’s say, not very republican with the TSE.
Objectively and according to Folha’s own headline, “Moraes used TSE outside the rite to investigate Bolsonarists in the Supreme Court” and the same newspaper also amended: “it is as if Moraes wrote: based on the evidence collected by myself and by myself already recriminated immediately, I decide.” Glen tweeted very similar content.
Moraes would have used the entire TSE system to investigate Bolsonaro and produce evidence against him. An obvious question to arise in this type of situation is: will this lead to anything? Well, as the popular saying goes, anything can happen, including nothing.
Reaction in Congress
But… the fact is that yesterday, August 13, Bolsonarist congressmen declared their intention to file an impeachment request against Moraes. If in the past this claim already existed but there was not sufficient grounds for it (impeachment), now the breath of these congressmen is renewed and, everything indicates, the necessary basis for the request is apparently consistent: Moraes used the TSE to support decisions by Moraes himself against allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro in the fake news investigation and digital militias. According to Folha, Minister Moraes said that the TSE has “police power” and that the reports requested were “official and regular.”
Minister Moraes’ performance with the STF has long been controversial. There is a growing chorus of discontent for his supposedly abusive, authoritarian and personalistic stance. When he was still a minister of the STF, Marco Aurélio Mello dubbed the Fake News inquiry, chaired by Moraes, the “End of the World Inquiry”, precisely because of his pretense of wanting to investigate everything and everyone.
The dynamics of power, and the history around it, shows that any prominent character, no matter how powerful, is exposed to risks, wear and tear, friction and the consequences arising from it all. Considered all-powerful by many, and prestigious by his fellow ministers in the Supreme Court, Moraes knows that this situation can change and in an unfavorable way for him.
In politics and in power relations in general, impermanence sets the tone. As already said, this episode can unfold in some directions. One of them is the emptiness of no consequence. Another possibility, however, is that there is such a great wear and tear that Moraes may find himself abandoned and isolated in terms of political articulation. The case, however, is at the beginning. It is necessary to wait a little longer to predict the final fate of this imbroglio.
For more of my writing, and those of other researchers, see www.institutoconviccao.com.br
