Alexandre de Moraes accuses André Mendonça of violations he himself committed

The dispute inside Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has reached a point where Alexandre de Moraes is accusing André Mendonça of practices resembling his own conduct over the past several years.

Moraes placed Mendonça under investigation in the fake-news case on three grounds: allegedly taking control of investigations away from police authorities, improperly handling a possible plea bargain, and directing investigations toward particular targets. He cited Mendonça’s actions in the Master and INSS cases, saying they showed signs that the Federal Police had been stripped of investigative powers.

Yet Moraes has led the fake-news inquiry for seven years after it was opened on the court’s own initiative. He made several decisions despite positions expressed by the Office of the Prosecutor General. When the inquiry began, then-Prosecutor General Raquel Dodge requested that it be closed.

Moraes also accuses Mendonça of improperly handling plea deals involving Master and INSS. He says Mendonça questioned the stage of the investigations and the information presented by cooperating witnesses. The comparison is sharpened by Moraes’s active role in the plea agreement of Mauro Cid, a former aide to ex-President Jair Bolsonaro. Although the agreement received approval from the prosecutor’s office and the Federal Police, Moraes took part in hearings, while Cid changed his account several times.

Moraes further claims that Mendonça directed investigations at specific targets, especially Moraes himself and Senate President David Alcolumbre, for political and personal reasons. At the same time, messages reported by the press showed that staff in Moraes’s office, when he led the Superior Electoral Court and served as rapporteur for Supreme Court inquiries, asked electoral-court advisers to prepare reports on people under investigation in the Supreme Court. They even asked them to be “creative.” The situations are not identical, the article says, but their similarities have fueled a public institutional crisis in Brazil’s judiciary.

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