The president of Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), Edson Fachin, has given Andrei Rodrigues, the director-general of the Federal Police, 48 hours to provide information. The deadline was set in a ruling signed on Wednesday, Sept. 9. Once it expires, Fachin will decide whether Rodrigues keeps the job.
"Mr. Andrei Augusto Passos Rodrigues shall be summoned to provide information within 48 (forty-eight) hours, after which his continuation as Director-General of the Federal Police, under article 33, sole paragraph, of LOMAN [Brazil's organic law on the judiciary], will be examined by this Presidency," Fachin wrote, as reported by G1.
How the standoff unfolded
The deadline is part of a batch of rulings in which Fachin suspended orders issued by justices André Mendonça and Flávio Dino. On Tuesday, Sept. 8, Mendonça ordered the preventive removal of Rodrigues and of the Federal Police intelligence director, Leandro Almada, and opened criminal investigative proceedings into how intelligence reports were produced. He said the removal was needed to protect evidence and the investigations. He asked the court's Second Chamber to review the order in a virtual session, and it had formed a three-vote majority to uphold the removals when Justice Gilmar Mendes asked for more time, halting the vote.
On Wednesday, Dino reversed the removal at Rodrigues's own request. The police chief argued the order was holding up an investigation connected to "Dark Horse," a film about former president Jair Bolsonaro that Dino oversees. Hours later, Fachin suspended both rulings. The suspension of Mendonça's order followed a request from the Attorney General's Office, the AGU, which said in a statement that the decision "restores public and administrative order" and reaffirms the president's constitutional power to appoint and dismiss federal police commanders.
In the same rulings, Fachin took the so-called Fake News inquiry away from Justice Alexandre de Moraes and suspended every investigation aimed at members of the court. "The Presidency has the duty to safeguard the preservation of the Court's integrity and is convinced that it does so and will do so," Fachin wrote, describing a moment of "conflicts and procedural overlaps" causing "grave harm to public order and to the integrity" of the court. The clash began with investigations into the Master bank.
What comes next
Fachin has called the full bench to a session on Tuesday, Sept. 15, to weigh a Federal Police report on an alleged relationship between Moraes and the jailed banker Daniel Vorcaro, and to rule on a nullity request filed by the Prosecutor General's office. Meanwhile, Rodrigues's 48-hour clock is running. According to G1, he spent Wednesday afternoon at the Federal Police headquarters in Brasília and had not commented on the ruling as of the latest update.