Mendonça Pulls Lula Into the Center of the Supreme Court Crisis

André Mendonça’s unprecedented decision to remove Federal Police Director-General Andrei Rodrigues and the agency’s intelligence chief, Leandro Almada, has pulled Lula’s government squarely into the Supreme Court crisis.

The president had already been under pressure because of the escalating confrontation between Mendonça and fellow Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Now the dispute directly involves his administration. Lula’s solicitor general is expected to defend Rodrigues. That can be presented as the presidency’s duty, while accepting the solicitor general’s suggestion that Mendonça may have overstepped. But Lula, who had been maneuvering to remain above the fight, will now have to take a more obvious side.

That makes the president’s position more difficult. He is already facing a campaign over the tactical alliance he built during his term with Moraes, the justice who sent Jair Bolsonaro to prison. After Moraes’s involvement in the fake-news inquiry and former banker Daniel Vorcaro took on the appearance of a scandal last week, Lula tried to distance himself from the crisis unfolding across from the Three Powers Plaza. He called for a broad and transparent investigation, following the usual playbook for such situations.

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terribly evangelical

Perhaps Lula was counting on the settlement being hinted at by figures close to Moraes. When the justice escalated against Mendonça, the apparent aim was to put his colleague on the defensive. Instead, the response relied on weak documents presented as evidence of the rival’s misconduct, and Mendonça responded forcefully on Tuesday. Everything points to another escalation. People familiar with Moraes say he is ready to go further, while Mendonça’s reference to Orwell’s Big Brother in his decision was not accidental.

For public-opinion purposes, Lula is now on Mendonça’s side of the trench. At the September 7 ceremony in São Paulo, Flávio Bolsonaro had already sided with the “terribly evangelical” justice appointed to the Supreme Court by his father. He anticipated new revelations about his own relationship with Vorcaro, while his ally Silas Malafaia demanded a position from the justices who were to assess Mendonça’s order. The court’s president, Edson Fachin, has so far been unable to stop the artillery fire from either side. Gilmar Mendes’s request for more time in the Federal Police case has offered a pause, but it does not look likely to last. The conflict is already encouraging unusual proposals in Brasília, including Lula ally Marco Aurélio Carvalho’s suggestion that the Council of the Republic be convened to address an “unprecedented institutional crisis.” The council advises the president on declaring a state of defense or siege, making the suggestion itself a troubling signal from Lula’s camp.

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unprecedented institutional crisis