The dean of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), Justice Gilmar Mendes, told President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a private meeting that the Federal Police should push back on orders from fellow Justice André Mendonça whenever officers consider them excessive or unlawful. The meeting took place on the morning of September 1 at the Planalto palace, according to the political column of the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, and was meant to advise the president on the crisis between the court and the federal force.
In Gilmar's assessment, shared with Lula, the government failed by never demanding a brake, since the start, on André Mendonça's measures. Mendonça is the rapporteur justice for the Master Bank and INSS cases, the latter including investigations that reach the president's son, Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, known as Lulinha, who is under investigation and entitled to the presumption of innocence. The column reports the same criticism was aimed at the Justice Ministry and at the Federal Police itself. To illustrate the standoff, the justice cited a ruling that kept federal investigators from part of the case material and an order sending all actions and proceedings to the rapporteur's chambers.
Gilmar laid out a firm position for the force's leadership. In his reading, director-general Andrei Rodrigues may declare that unlawful orders will not be carried out and go directly to the courts to have the determination suspended. In an extreme situation, the force could even seek a writ of mandamus against Mendonça's decisions, a step the justice said he sees no need to reach. His main recommendation is an institutional solution, either a joint move by the justice minister and STF President Edson Fachin, or direct talks between Andrei Rodrigues and Fachin. To justify such a reaction, Gilmar pointed to the Federal Police reports rejected by the Prosecutor General's Office and to the testimony of former banker Daniel Vorcaro, in which Andrei Rodrigues is mentioned.
Behind the meeting with Lula
A report by Folha journalist Catia Seabra, republished by Estado de Minas, confirms the meeting and adds that Gilmar sought Lula right after a coffee attended by STF justices and the police director-general. According to accounts heard by the paper, the dean said that when a Supreme Court justice unduly interferes with police work, the problem stops belonging to the court alone and becomes the government's as well. Reached for comment, Gilmar declined to speak.
The conversation came after Estadão revealed that Vorcaro, arrested in the Compliance Zero operation and under investigation in the Master case, testified before Mendonça with prosecutors present and no Federal Police representative in the room. In that testimony he said he intended to sign a plea deal against members of Lula's government and made accusations against Andrei Rodrigues. The standoff with the executive branch has earlier roots: in July, Rodrigues asked Attorney General of the Union Jorge Messias, the federal government's top lawyer, to challenge Mendonça's decisions, and Messias refused, arguing that his office acting in a criminal case would be unprecedented and could be read as attempted obstruction of justice. According to Folha, Gilmar also described dysfunctional relations between the police and the two ministries that oversee it, led by Jorge Messias and Justice Minister Wellington César Lima e Silva.
Timeline of the crisis and next steps
The crisis sped up after Mendonça ordered the Federal Police to produce a report exposing message exchanges between Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the court's vice president, and Vorcaro, based on material found on the former banker's phone. On September 1, the same day Gilmar met Lula, Mendonça lifted the secrecy on the case and suggested the full bench review it. Lula also spoke with Fachin that day.
"Given the content of the information presented by the police authority, regardless of whatever position the Prosecutor General's Office may take, the inevitable path of these proceedings leads to the plenary of this Supreme Federal Court, the sovereign body to analyze, in a technical and strictly legal manner, the new elements brought by the police authority," Mendonça wrote.
Moraes responded by asking Fachin to open an investigation of Mendonça for administrative improbity, abuse of authority, malfeasance in office and favoritism toward political groups, based on what he calls strong indications in his handling of the Master and INSS cases. Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet said the police inquiry is null and could not have been carried out without a request from prosecutors or from the force itself.
On Thursday (3), Fachin ordered Mendonça, Moraes, Gonet and Andrei Rodrigues to explain, within five business days, the events behind the crisis. He asked for information on whether the Federal Police followed the rules of the judiciary's organic law when dealing with officials who can only be tried at the Supreme Court, and on indications that institutional access credentials were used to examine a strictly private document. On Friday (4), speaking at the Planalto, Fachin also defended closing the "fake news" inquiry, opened in 2019 under Moraes, as a way to ease tensions at the court.