Sergio Moro yesterday announced the departure of the government at a press conference in which he accused Jair Bolsonaro of political interference by demanding the departure of the director general of federal police Maurício Valeixo.
“The big problem is not who to exchange is why to exchange and allow political interference within the scope of the federal police. The president told me that he wanted to put a person in it, that he could collect information, intelligence reports. It really is not role of the federal police to provide this type of information, police autonomy is essential “, said Sergio Moro.
The now ex-minister made a history of the situation that led to his departure: “I was a judge for 22 years, before being a minister, and from 2014 we had Operation Lava Jato that changed the level of the fight against corruption, since that time I always felt like interfering with changes in the police but the government at the time [de Dilma Rousseff, do PT], despite numerous defects, it maintained the autonomy of the Federal Police and that allowed the results “, said Moro after lamenting the event in the middle of a pandemic that until Thursday had already caused more than 3000 deaths.
“On any given Sunday,” he continued, “around that time, Maurício Valeixo himself was ordered to release Lula da Silva by an incompetent judge and it was thanks to his autonomy that this order was reversed before the execution”.
“At the end of 2018 I received an invitation from the then-elected Jair Bolsonaro to be minister of justice and security, where I established a commitment against organized crime, corruption and violent crimes. At the time it was said that I would have established a vacancy in the Supreme Court (STF) ), which was not true, the only condition that I put, and that I would never reveal but reveal now, is that I asked that in case something happened to me my family would not be helpless. The president also said that he would give me carte blanche and I accepted “.
“In the ministry, the north word has been integration, with a tough fight against organized crime, not against but with the states. I had support from the majority of the president in these projects, but from the middle of last year there began to be insistence on exchanges with the federal police. , first replacing the head of the federal police in Rio de Janeiro, then changing the general director of the federal police, I told him I would need a cause, that he was doing a good job “, said the former Lava judge Jet.
“The problem was not the name, the problems were that there was no cause, there was political interference and created disorganization,” he concluded.
Immediately after the conclusion of the press conference, there was a noise from Brazil. And most analysts spoke of “the biggest crisis in the Bolsonaro government.” “Nothing will be like before,” noted Valdo Cruz, from Globonews.
The Stock Exchange fell by 7 points and the dollar reached, comparatively considering inflation, the highest value in history.
Sergio Moro had even asked for the resignation of the Jair Bolsonaro government over Thursday after being informed that the President of the Republic intended to accept the departure of the director general of the federal police. As Bolsonaro accepted, during the day, to work to keep him or choose someone trusted by the minister for the post, Moro, who also heard requests from the government’s military wing to continue, ended up “falling asleep” in office. But he woke up with the news that Valeixo’s departure was made official in the Diário Oficial da União, equivalent to the Diário da República. And decided to leave.
Valeixo, who would have a diplomatic post in Portugal waiting for him, had been questioned by Bolsonaro since the middle of last year. The president has not liked the action of the police director in judicial cases that concern him, namely in the investigation of his firstborn, senator Flávio Bolsonaro, accused of criminal association and money laundering in a scheme known in Brazilian political jargon for “cracked” .
On the other hand, a team of the federal police investigates, within the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, the fake news favorable to the government on social networks, Carlos Bolsonaro, councilor of Rio de Janeiro, second son of the president and manager of the “hate office” that writes this news. More: the Supreme Federal Court (STF) authorized an investigation into who is the author and financier of demonstrations against democracy in which Bolsonaro himself participated last Sunday. And Valeixo chose the same team that investigates the fake news and it can reach the same name: Carlos Bolsonaro.
In another police case in which Bolsonaro is not investigated but has been cited, that of councilwoman Marielle Franco’s execution, Valeixo’s action is also frowned upon by the Planalto Palace.
On the other hand, in the last few days the president has been trying to reconnect with the so-called “center” of the National Congress – and in this “center”, the group of parties without a defined ideology that moves openly for positions and not for projects, the minister of justice and security has been frowned upon since Operation Car Wash, which he led, condemned deputies and senators from that political area.
Last week, however, Bolsonaro had sacked another popular minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, the incumbent of health, who was highlighted in the fight against the coronavirus but defended social isolation, clashing with the president. After this resignation, according to government sources, “Bolsonaro felt empowered”.
Over the past few hours, distinguished ex-Bolsonarists, however, have manifested themselves on social media in favor of Moro.
“I want to shout at the top of my head in 2022: I live in President! And redeem myself for the mistake I made in 2018 when I believed in a country project that became an electoral fraud.” Where’s the fight against corruption? “Where’s the liberal economy?” Where is “full democracy? Bolsonaro buried everything,” wrote Congresswoman Joice Hasselmann, who once came to be called “Bolsonaro in skirts”, in Twitter.
“The government promised by Bolsonaro is over. The liberal plan of the [ministro da economia Paulo] Guedes and Moro’s anti-corruption plan were defeated by the pandemic, ‘crackers’ and by the marriage with the ‘centão’. There remains the stupid ignorance of the [ministro da educação Abraham Weintraub] and Ernesto [Araújo, ministro das relações exteriores]. And some generals trying to avoid disaster “, said Senator Alessandro Vieira.
Bolsonaro’s “goal”
Sergio Moro, the most popular of all Jair Bolsonaro’s ministers, more popular until the President of the Republic himself, according to regular opinion polls from specialized institutes, was considered the star of the Brazilian extreme right government led by the former captain of the army.
His arrival at the executive, shortly after the results of the 2018 presidential elections were known, was celebrated in the bolsonarista hosts as “a great goal” by the president. Bolsonaro told his minister – or super-minister – of justice and national security that he would have “carte blanche” to choose his team and to define his line of action.
Moro was criticized at the time for accepting to be part of the controversial new president’s government, especially after indirectly contributing to the electoral result, by condemning and ordering Lula da Silva, the former president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010 who led the polls, ahead of Bolsonaro, for this suffrage.
The face of Operation Lava Jato and the anti-corruption fight, the 22-year-old judge from the state of Paraná entered the government with strong ambitions – which, however, he never confirmed. Legal – believed to be nominated by Bolsonaro for the STF, the peak of his career in the judiciary – now politics – although inexperienced, he knew he could run as Bolsonaro’s vice president in the 2022 presidential election or even on his own, depending on the circumstances.
Defeats and pressures
Living with Bolsonaro, however, has never been easy. He underwent successive setbacks in a fierce struggle with the president, including the loss of command of the financial operations control body, which passed into the tutelage of the economy, and which is considered an area of his specialty.
In the race for a place in the STF, he heard from Bolsonaro that the ideal candidate would be “someone terribly evangelical”, a condition that fit like a glove in André Mendonça, the union’s attorney general.
He also suffered from the dissemination of messages by The Intercept website where it was known that he acted in collusion with the public prosecutor – and not with the expected exemption of a minister – in processes, such as Lula’s.
But the main source of problems has always been Maurício Valeixo. In August 2019, Bolsonaro wanted to change the command of the Rio de Janeiro police, against the opinion of Moro and Valeixo, when he felt he was losing control of the investigations into the corruption case of his son Flávio Bolsonaro and the execution of city councilor Marielle Franco to Wilson Witzel, governor of that state and a recent political opponent of the presidential clan.
In February, Moro and Valeixo came under attack again: Bolsonaro gave signs that he wanted to remove the minister’s security portfolio, leaving him only with justice. Alberto Fraga, a former policeman and former deputy linked to the arms lobby and very close to the president, volunteered for the post and even said that Moro did not understand anything about security.
The divorce between Moro and Bolsonaro, with the name of Valeixo as a pivot, has now emerged.
The friend Valeixo
Valeixo, 59, is a close friend of Moro. He was chosen in 2018 by the minister himself to serve as director general of the Federal Police, in place of Rogério Galloro.
Former intelligence director of the Federal Police, Valeixo was responsible for a fundamental area in Moro’s management, that of Combating Organized Crime.
In addition, at Lava-Jato he served as superintendent of the Federal Police in Paraná and coordinated the arrest of former President Lula da Silva. It was also during his administration that the accusation of Antonio Palocci, Lula’s former economy minister and Dilma Rousseff’s civilian office in Curitiba, was closed.
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