Justice Flávio Dino of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) on Wednesday ordered the immediate reinstatement of Federal Police director-general Andrei Augusto Passos Rodrigues and intelligence director Leandro Almada da Costa, with the full restoration of their duties. The ruling granted a request filed by the director-general himself and reversed a preventive removal ordered the day before by Justice André Mendonça, deepening a crisis between the court and the force. Dino also barred new personal precautionary measures against the two officers for acts carried out in the regular exercise of their duties.
The crisis broke out on Tuesday, when Mendonça removed both men (both hold the rank of delegate, the officer rank that leads federal investigations), ordered criminal and administrative disciplinary proceedings against Rodrigues in the force's internal affairs office and banned the production and sharing of intelligence reports on judges, prosecutors and police officers. According to the justice, he and the solicitor general of the Union, Jorge Messias, were targets of "systematic" and illegal monitoring by police intelligence, a practice he called institutional arapongagem, a Brazilian term for illegal snooping on officials. The court's Second Chamber, a five-justice panel, had endorsed the removal by majority vote. As BBC News Brasil noted, the decision came five days after Justice Alexandre de Moraes asked the court to investigate Mendonça within the so-called Fake News inquiry, a probe into disinformation.
Dino's arguments
In granting the provisional remedy, Dino found that the Novo party, whose request had led to the removal, lacked standing, because criminal precautionary measures such as stripping a public official of office can only be sought by prosecutors or by police authorities. The justice also noted that the party has a candidate in the 2026 presidential race, former governor Romeu Zema, and that criminal proceedings cannot be instrumentalized in electoral disputes. "The active illegitimacy of the Novo party to request the precautionary measure is unequivocal," Dino wrote, in a passage quoted by G1, adding that the flaw "taints the entire judicial order determined".
Dino also argued that the question of the Federal Police intelligence reports is already before Chief Justice Edson Fachin, who set a deadline for filings and referred the matter to the full court, which in his view barred a unilateral decision routed to the Second Chamber. "Can a party be a judge in its own case and anticipate value judgments about Federal Police reports that expressly mention it?" the justice asked, noting that Mendonça is cited in the very documents under review. Dino invoked the separation of powers as well, saying that appointing and dismissing the director-general is the president's exclusive prerogative, and recorded that Andrei was merely complying with judicial orders issued by Moraes.
According to G1, Dino described the suspension of the intelligence directorate's work as undue interference in the force, harming investigations such as the murder of Marielle Franco and the congressional budget kickback case, on which he is the reporting justice. He mentioned the inquiry into the financing of "Dark Horse", a biopic of former president Jair Bolsonaro, saying developments in that probe had led Andrei to report damage to institutional work and to ask for the removal to be revoked. Dino also cited recent news about a meeting between Mendonça and former banker Daniel Vorcaro, who is under investigation in a billion-dollar fraud scheme, to argue that the moment demanded "prudence, moderation and republican balance" from the judiciary. The order stands until the Federal Police fully complies with the measures Dino determined in cases assigned to him, according to a passage transcribed by columnist Mônica Bergamo of Folha de S.Paulo:
"This determination will remain in force until full compliance, by the Federal Police, with the measures determined by this reporting office in the cases assigned to me, without interruption resulting from external interference."
The reinstatement immediately reached the presidential race. On social media, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the PL, a presidential candidate, said that "Brazil is without a president, it has turned into chaos" ("virou várzea", in the original) and called on Fachin to resolve the matter "immediately". Zema of the Novo party criticized the ruling: "This is the Brazil of the untouchables," he wrote, voicing support for Mendonça and saying the party "asked for this man's arrest" and will not back down. As of the publication of the reports, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is running for reelection, had not commented, according to G1.
The two officers still face the proceedings opened by Mendonça and keep the presumption of innocence, as does everyone else named in the case files. The next institutional step is a review by the full court of the question of the Federal Police intelligence reports, the body Dino held to be competent to decide the matter, after the deadline for filings set by Fachin. None of the reports consulted gives a date for that judgment.