Brazil's Federal Police produced intelligence reports totaling 50 pages that analyzed the conduct of Supreme Federal Court Justice André Mendonça in investigations assigned to him, and that conclude there was "asymmetry by political spectrum" in his rulings. According to Poder360, which obtained the material, the officers assessed that Mendonça applied a different standard in the cases of businessman Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, known as Lulinha, the eldest son of President Lula, and ACM Neto, a candidate for governor of Bahia. The document was sent to Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who folded it into the so-called fake news inquiry and relied on it in a decision issued on Thursday (September 3, 2026), in which he cited "strong indications" that his colleague committed administrative improbity, abuse of authority and a crime of responsibility.
The reports were drawn up under Federal Police director-general Andrei Rodrigues and focus on Operation Sem Desconto, which investigates fraud in benefit discounts at the INSS, Brazil's social security agency, and Operation Compliance Zero, which examines suspicions tied to Banco Master. Both inquiries report to Mendonça. The officers examined the evidentiary standard he adopted, how long he took to rule on measures requested by the police, and his ties to fellow justices and political figures, and they raised hypotheses about possible motives. O Globo, which quoted passages of the text, reported that the police found that the "factual situation investigated" in the two cases "bears a relevant similarity", and concluded that the justice's perception changed "depending on the political spectrum of the person involved". Folha de S.Paulo reported that the document records an August 13 meeting in which Mendonça allegedly voiced the perception that ACM Neto was engaged in a representation activity.
Alcolumbre as a "probable strategic target"
The material also weighs in on Senate President Davi Alcolumbre of the União Brasil party. In the officers' reading, he is a "probable strategic target" because of his political weight, his favored position to keep the Senate presidency and his control of the chamber's agenda, above all the handling of impeachment requests against Supreme Court justices. In his Thursday decision, Moraes accused his colleague of steering investigations at targets for "personal and political reasons", wrote that probes were steered against Alcolumbre with a "political bias" and said he himself had been targeted by the same practice. The report argues that Mendonça might see Antônio Rueda, the president of União Brasil, as a route to reach the senator, "with whom he had a well-known falling out at the time of his own nomination to the Court, under the previous government, when that lawmaker posed a major obstacle to the nomination".
According to O Globo, the officers recorded that Mendonça allegedly pushed, in an in-person meeting, to separate the investigations of ACM Neto and Rueda despite the apparent connection between their conduct.
"Note the asymmetry of treatment: separation is suggested where the unit identifies a connection, whereas in the July 2026 episode the rapporteur's objection fell on a split ordered by the unit precisely where no connection existed."
The document itself is contested ground. It is printed on paper without Federal Police letterhead, it is unsigned and it gives no exact date of delivery to Moraes. The reports also flag their own limits, as Poder360 summarized: they are intelligence analyses built on incomplete information, they work with hypotheses and confidence ratings, and they are not pieces of case evidence and carry no probative value. Mendonça's office did not respond to a request for comment from Poder360 before publication. The justice has not been convicted of any of the crimes cited.
How the document reached the court
The reports were produced before Mendonça's decision on Tuesday (September 1) to unseal pieces of the Master investigation showing a relationship between the bank's founder, Daniel Vorcaro, and Moraes. After that ruling, Moraes said he had learned the intelligence report existed and ordered the Federal Police to send it to his chambers through case 4.781, the fake news inquiry, a long-running Supreme Court probe into online disinformation. On Thursday (September 3), he used the material in the decision citing "strong indications", added Mendonça to the inquiry, unsealed the documents, ordered that the Prosecutor General's office be informed and asked court president Edson Fachin to take action. Fachin opened a new proceeding.
The next step is set: Fachin gave five business days for Moraes, Mendonça, Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet and police chief Andrei Rodrigues to submit information. No date has been set for a final ruling.