Federal Police intelligence reports say that André Mendonça, a justice of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), may have interfered in investigations known as Operation Sem Desconto and Operation Compliance Zero. The findings appear in documents disclosed in a decision by Justice Alexandre de Moraes released on Thursday (Sept. 3), according to the Mônica Bergamo column of Folha de S.Paulo. Drawing on the reports, Moraes asked court president Edson Fachin to open an investigation into his colleague within the STF's long-running inquiry into disinformation networks, known as the fake news inquiry.

In the filing, Moraes wrote that there are "strong indications" of administrative improbity, abuse of authority, impeachable offenses and favoritism toward political groups in Mendonça's conduct as reporting justice for the Banco Master and INSS cases, inquiries into a major Brazilian bank and the federal pension system. Moraes said Mendonça had taken the direction of investigations away from police authorities, handled plea bargain negotiations improperly and steered targets "for personal and political reasons," with prior designation of precautionary measures to be requested by the Federal Police. The targets cited include Moraes himself and Senate President Davi Alcolumbre.

What the reports say

Passages quoted in the decision detail the suspicions. One report says Mendonça ordered, on his own initiative, an investigative measure to produce evidence against Moraes without signing a judicial decision and without informing the Prosecutor General's office. Another points to "asymmetry by political spectrum": the justice would have taken "very different" positions on wrongdoing attributed to fellow justices Dias Toffoli and Nunes Marques. A third assesses that Alcolumbre would be the target of a strategy to reshape the balance of power within the court.

"It is assessed that Davi Alcolumbre is a probable strategic target, given his political strength, his favored position to remain president of the Senate and the resulting control of the chamber's agenda, notably regarding the processing of impeachment requests against Supreme Court justices," says the passage cited by Moraes.

The documents also record statements attributed to Mendonça about Federal Police director-general Andrei Rodrigues and Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet. According to the police, the justice considered Rodrigues untrustworthy because of supposed "inadequate" closeness to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and mentioned a precautionary removal. On Gonet, he allegedly argued that closeness to Justice Gilmar Mendes "would make him unworthy of trust" and weighed calling him as a witness. The report stresses that no concrete facts of irregular conduct by the police chief were presented.

Timeline

• Sept. 1: Mendonça orders the declassification of a Federal Police report, produced at his request, that exposed messages and contacts between Moraes and Daniel Vorcaro, the former owner of Banco Master. The Prosecutor General's office asks for the investigation to be declared null.
• Sept. 3: Moraes sends Fachin the request to investigate Mendonça, based on the intelligence reports. On the same day, Fachin orders Moraes, Mendonça, the Prosecutor General's office and the Federal Police to provide information within five days.

Mendonça had not publicly commented on the reports as of Thursday night, according to g1, Globo's news portal. In earlier statements on the crisis, the justice said he had met Vorcaro only once, to discuss court-ordered government debts known as precatórios. He is the subject of a request for investigation; there is no formal charge or conviction, and the conclusions reported by the police have not yet been tested in an adversarial proceeding.

The next procedural step is the five-day deadline set by Fachin, counted from Thursday, for Moraes, Mendonça, Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet and police director-general Andrei Rodrigues to explain the crisis and their contacts with Vorcaro. In the decision, Moraes recalled that under the Constitution and the court's rules, a collegiate body must examine any common crime allegedly committed by justices.