Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Minister Alexandre de Moraes allegedly ordered the unofficial production of reports by Brazil’s Electoral Court later used to support his own rulings against supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, according to a report published by the left-wing Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo on Tuesday.
De Moraes, in addition to being a justice on Brazil’s highest court, served as the head of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) between August 2022 and June 2024. De Moraes has maintained an open inquiry against alleged “fake news” circulators since 2019 and opened a separate inquiry to investigate so-called “anti-democratic digital militias” that spread “fake news” and “threaten democracy” in Brazil.
Both inquiries have been used by de Moraes — a self-styled “anti-fake news” crusader — to spearhead a pervasive censorship campaign against Brazilian citizens, journalists, and politicians supportive of former conservative President Jair Bolsonaro.
De Moraes said in 2023 that the inquiry against “fake news” will be concluded “when it is finished.”
The STF minister was also at the forefront of a censorship campaign against Bolsonaro during the 2022 presidential election, forcing his campaign to refrain from calling far-left then-candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a “thief” or “criminal” in reference to Lula’s multiple convictions on corruption charges. Bolsonaro and his family have been the target of police raids ordered by de Moraes, who also ruled to ban Bolsonaro from running for office for eight years after the former president expressed concerns over the security of Brazil’s election.
The former president is also facing open probes and indictments ordered by de Moraes that have resulted in his being forced to relinquish his passport, effectively trapping him in Brazil.
Folha’s report stated that the newspaper was able to access more than six gigabytes worth of messages and files exchanged by de Moraes’ main adviser at the STF, Airton Vieira; de Moraes’ assistants; and Eduardo Tagliaferro, a criminal expert who served as TSE’s special adviser for “confronting disinformation” until he was arrested on domestic violence charges in 2023.
The messages, according to Folha, show that Airton Vieira informally asked TSE’s anti-disinformation branch to produce reports against Bolsonaro allies or supporters. The unofficially requested reports were then used to inform de Moraes’ STF “fake news” investigations against the targeted individuals.
The messages were allegedly exchanged by those involved between August 2022 and May 2023 — during and after Brazil’s 2022 presidential election campaign.
The newspaper claimed that at least “two dozen” cases of informal and irregular requests made by de Moraes’ office to the STF were found in the messages, some of which were used by de Moraes to support “criminal measures” against supporters of the former president such as canceling their passports, blocking their social media accounts, and ordering them to testify before the Brazilian Federal Police.
According to the newspaper, in none of the cases was there any official information that stated that the reports had been produced at the request of de Moraes or his office at the STF. Some of the reports, Folha claimed, appeared to have been made “on order” of an auxiliary TSE judge or through an “anonymous complaint.”
Folha claimed that none of the messages the newspaper reviewed were obtained through hacking or other illegal methods, but were instead provided by unnamed sources who had access to a phone device that contained the messages.
The office of Alexandre de Moraes at the STF appeared to respond to the report in a statement issued on Tuesday evening insisting that all investigations made under the “fake news” and “digital militias” inquiries were “official, regular and duly documented” with the knowledge and “full participation” of the Attorney General’s Office.
Following the report’s publication, Brazilian senators and politicians supportive of former President Jair Bolsonaro began making public calls for Alexandre de Moraes’s impeachment, describing the actions alleged in the report as “antidemocratic.” Brazilian lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, was among the politicians that called for the STF minister’s impeachment.
“We must demand the annulment of all these acts of the TSE regarding the [former] president [Bolsonaro], by Alexandre de Moraes, the impeachment of Alexandre de Moraes, and the end of these fake news investigations,” Eduardo Bolsonaro said during a social media broadcast.
Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, another of the former president’s sons, stated that, in addition to being impeached, de Moraes must “answer for an attack against democracy” and called for the dismissal of all of the cases against Jair Bolsonaro de Moraes was involved in, stating that the information in the report “crystalizes his predisposition to condemn him.”
Brazilian Senator Damares Alves announced on social media that a group of opposition Senators will present a request for de Moraes’ impeachment on Wednesday.
Nós, senadores de oposição, apresentaremos amanhã um pedido de impeachment do Ministro Alexandre de Moraes.
— Damares Alves (@DamaresAlves) August 14, 2024
Temos mais de uma dezena de senadores que já manifestaram interesse em assinar. Se cinco por cento do que foi divulgado hoje for verdade, espero que o Ministro ainda… pic.twitter.com/sVkKwvwzXK
“We have more than a dozen senators who have already expressed interest in signing. If five percent of what was released today is true, I hope that the Minister will put his head on the pillow tonight or early this morning, think it over, and present his resignation at daybreak,” Alves’ message read. “It will be easier for everyone. It is the least he could do now to guarantee our democracy.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
