The president of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), Edson Fachin, has pressed Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet to step aside from the Banco Master case and skip the court session that will examine a report portraying Justice Alexandre de Moraes as an interlocutor of banker Daniel Vorcaro. The account comes from Folha de S.Paulo. The session is scheduled for Tuesday, September 15.
Court sources heard by Folha say Fachin considered ordering Gonet's removal from the case through a judicial measure in recent days. He changed course and concluded that a move by the prosecutor himself would work better. The two met for about half an hour on Thursday (10) at the office of the court's presidency. People familiar with the talks say Fachin suggested that the Prosecutor General's Office (PGR), which leads federal prosecutions in Brazil, be represented on Tuesday by another prosecutor. One option raised was deputy prosecutor general Hindenburgo Chateaubriand.
Why the case reaches the PGR
The report that casts Moraes as an interlocutor of Vorcaro, the owner of the defunct Banco Master who is jailed in Brasília, also mentions the head of the PGR. The police investigation includes exchanges in which lawyer Ciro Soares forwards to the banker messages attributed to the prosecutor general. In other excerpts, Vorcaro asks Moraes to activate Gonet and Federal Police director Andrei Rodrigues to block an operation against the bank. According to the findings, Gonet's son also asked the banker to attend an event funded by him in London, with expenses paid.
Gonet denies any wrongdoing. In conversations with his team in recent days, as reported by Folha, he denied a close relationship with Vorcaro and said Moraes never asked for interference in the Master investigations. Members of the office who work directly with him say he knew lawyer Ciro Soares and treated him in a friendly way, which they describe as his style.
What comes next
Tuesday's session is part of the crisis that the Master investigations have opened at the STF, drawing in Fachin, Moraes, rapporteur André Mendonça, the PGR and the Federal Police leadership. Behind the scenes, the view is that Gonet's absence matters most if the office chooses to argue orally before the full bench. Moraes sent Fachin a letter on Friday (11) speaking of a "selective choice" in the partial release of documents ordered by Mendonça and asking that the two case files be judged together, according to G1. Fachin has yet to define the procedure for the trial.