President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva directly attacked Supreme Federal Court (STF) Justice André Mendonça at a campaign rally in Curitiba on Saturday, September 12. According to the newspaper O Globo, Lula accused the justice of leaking details of investigations that suited him. The president said he took the complaint to the court's chief justice, Edson Fachin.
Lula described the request he made to Fachin. "It was not acceptable for the reporting judge to keep releasing cherry-picked stories, only what interested him," he said. The president also asked for the full case files to be opened. "We will put everything in the open, to see who is truly a thief and corrupt in this country. The Bolsonaro family will not escape."
He then turned to Daniel Vorcaro, founder of Banco Master and in custody in the investigations into the bank.
Vorcaro is already in jail. But now the orgies he used to throw will start to come out. The women from Switzerland, from Sweden, to mess around with a lot of people in politics. Whoever took part in this filth will be unmasked.
The reference to "orgies" follows a report by the magazine Piauí published on Friday, September 11, cited by O Globo. In an October 2023 exchange with former minister Fábio Faria, Vorcaro was told that senators Davi Alcolumbre and Rodrigo Pacheco, along with STF Justice Dias Toffoli, would attend a party he planned to host in São Paulo. "Davi is dying to know if the Swiss girls are coming," Faria wrote, according to the magazine. In Curitiba, Lula called Vorcaro a "loan shark". "In 2019, they took a loan shark and turned him into a banker. This Vorcaro corrupted many people in the Republic. They opened the bank and we shut the bank," he said, according to Poder360.
The court in crisis
The rally came in the middle of a conflict among the justices of the court, Brazil's top judicial body. On Friday, Fachin took over the review of the supposed relationship between Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Vorcaro, removed the case from Mendonça, who oversees the Banco Master and INSS investigations, and sent the files to the court's presidency, where they sit until his next decision, according to G1. The Federal Police report requested by Mendonça had pointed to that alleged tie. Fellow justices criticized him for seeking a probe into a colleague without approval from the full bench, and the Prosecutor General's office asked that the document be voided. That same day, Mendonça lifted secrecy on further Master-related cases, including the inquiry into the financing of the film "Dark Horse", which targets Flávio Bolsonaro, according to Poder360.
Fachin also gave the Federal Police 24 hours to explain the conditions of Vorcaro's phone. Justices Gilmar Mendes, Cristiano Zanin and Moraes want full access to the device before Tuesday's session. "It is not up to the reporting justice to choose which documents the bench may see to reach a ruling," Moraes said, according to G1.
Lula is running for reelection against Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ), son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, and told the crowd that 22 days remained until the vote, with the first round set for October 4. He also addressed his son, Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, known as Lulinha, whom the Federal Police is investigating over ties to Antônio Carlos Camilo Antunes, the "Careca do INSS" figure at the center of the scandal over improper deductions from retirees' pensions. "When they started talking about my son, I said my son will not be protected. I believe in his innocence, but if he made a mistake, he will have to pay for that mistake," Lula said. "That goes for me, for my son, and for any justice of the Supreme Court. No one can be a Supreme Court justice to get rich."
Lula said the justices must behave to a higher standard. "People have to hold themselves to a standard of conduct above the average of society," he said, according to O Globo. The campaign swing continues in the south of the country: on Friday he had rallied in Porto Alegre.
The court's calendar sets what comes next. On Tuesday, September 15, the full bench debates the validity of the Federal Police report and decides whether to open an investigation into Moraes or dismiss the case. According to O Globo, Fachin has set September 23 for the session that will examine the police reports on Mendonça, and denied the joint session requested by Moraes.