Brazil's Attorney General's Office, the AGU, will contest the ruling by Supreme Federal Court (STF) Justice André Mendonça that removed Andrei Rodrigues, director-general of the Federal Police, from his post on Tuesday (8). According to sources heard by Andréia Sadi's blog at g1, the office's argument will be that the measure breaches a power held exclusively by the presidency: appointing and dismissing the head of the force.
The ruling was monocratic, meaning Mendonça signed it alone, without a vote by his fellow justices. Besides the director-general, the justice removed the Federal Police's police intelligence director, Leandro Almada da Costa, ordered criminal and disciplinary investigations by the force's internal affairs office, and suspended the production and sharing of intelligence reports analyzing the work of judges and government lawyers.
Secret intelligence reports
Mendonça's decision responds to at least six intelligence reports produced secretly between August 3 and 31 and sent by the director-general to Justice Alexandre de Moraes in the Fake News Inquiry, a long-running disinformation investigation. According to the ruling, cited by g1, the documents subjected Mendonça himself and the attorney general of the Union, Jorge Messias, to what the justice called "systematic monitoring and directed collection" of information. Folha de S.Paulo traces the trigger to an internal police report that Moraes used to request an investigation of Mendonça for abuse of authority in the Banco Master and INSS case.
Marco Aurélio de Carvalho, a lawyer who coordinates President Lula's campaign in São Paulo, told Folha's Mônica Bergamo column that the government should appeal to the court's full bench before complying with the ruling, "given the gravity of the measure."
What comes next
The ruling must now be ratified by the court's Second Chamber, a five-justice panel made up of Luiz Fux, who chairs it, Gilmar Mendes, Dias Toffoli, Nunes Marques and Mendonça himself. Fux called an extraordinary virtual session for Tuesday (8) to review the case. The AGU's challenge is expected to be filed with the court next, and Rodrigues remains suspended until the panel rules.