If we use the criteria of Judge Moro to judge the actions of Citizen Moro, these dialogues reveal illegal acts. Faced with these revelations, Moro and the attorneys continue to deny the veracity of the dialogues. The drawback of this argument is that it was the Brazilian Federal Police itself, under Moro’s orders, when he was Minister of Justice, that carried out a review of the messages, and considered that they were true.
In 2019, The Intercept journalists received 43.8 gigabytes of data, which led to more than a hundred articles about Lava Jato. So far, only 10 percent of 7 terabytes have been analyzed, which is expected to continue to appear flaws and illegalities in the operation. But even with this small percentage revised, the dialogues confirm that this operation perverted justice, violated the rule of law in Brazil and was a fundamental factor in the construction of the dystopia that the country is experiencing, with an exacerbated political crisis and with the second world place of more deaths by the pandemic.
In 2018, when Moro announced that he would agree to join Bolsonaro’s cabinet as his Minister of Justice and Public Security, many experts and defenders of the operation were surprised. Perhaps now they are not so much. For both, the end justifies the means.
And the consequences of this collusion are clear: the rule of law is increasingly in danger with the approval of a large part of the establishment politician and economist who yesterday blindly supported the Lava Jato operation and today supports the arrival of a politician accused of corruption to the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, while the president dismantles most of the institutions for the fight against corruption and the crime.
In all, there is good news for Brazil: not all institutions have been co-opted. Some have denounced these abuses, echoing the voices of civil society that demand the restoration of the rule of law, starting with the restitution of Lula’s political rights. It is necessary to continue to monitor and denounce these arbitrariness and to critically reevaluate the significance of the Lava Jato operation for justice and democracy in Brazil.
The foregoing does not mean that the firm action of justice against corruption is not essential. On the contrary, it is necessary to strengthen the instruments to end the incestuous relationship between money and politics.
Gaspard Estrada (@Gaspard_Estrada) is executive director of the Political Observatory of Latin America and the Caribbean (OPALC) of Sciences Po, in Paris.
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