Sergio Moro was once one of Brazil’s most popular public figures. As the face of a pan-Latin American corruption crackdown, the former judge was revered by the country’s rightwing for confronting a venal political system plagued by a culture of impunity.
But since the investigation’s peak more than six years ago, Moro’s star has fallen precipitously, his standing battered by the shifting political landscape, revelations of misconduct and a series of ill-judged decisions.
The man once depicted at rightwing rallies as a barrel-chested superman and seen as a presidential contender now cuts an increasingly isolated figure, with few political allies. In the coming weeks, he faces the potential loss of his Senate seat for alleged campaign financing abuses as well as a Supreme Court investigation into his conduct during the Lava Jato, or car wash, probe.
A conviction in the latter case could bar him from running for office, analysts say, marking an abrupt end to the political career of a man who as a federal judge in 2017 oversaw the conviction and almost two-year incarceration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leftwing leader who returned to the presidency for a third term last year.
“It is important to understand that this is not just about Lula or a politician from one party or the other — almost all politicians are against Moro,” said Camila Rocha de Oliveira, a political scientist at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning. “He is also isolated in the legal community, among the courts, so he is in a very bad position.”
Moro defends his innocence and his conduct. He believes the various investigations he is facing are politically motivated — payback for his role in prosecuting Lula and other politicians during the car wash probe.
“[Lula’s party] has joined forces with opportunistic politicians and is seeking, without legitimate cause, the revocation of my mandate as revenge for the work done during the car wash investigation and also to eliminate a voice from the opposition,” Moro told the Financial Times. “The Lula government has, as expected, abandoned the fight against corruption.”
Moro, 51, rose to prominence about a decade ago as the judge overseeing the car wash probe from the southern state of Paraná. The investigation revealed a vast kickbacks-for-contracts scheme involving executives at state-controlled energy group Petrobras, a cartel of construction companies and dozens of lawmakers from across the political spectrum.
The US Treasury department called it the largest foreign bribery case in history. Billions of dollars were eventually recovered and sentences totalling more than 2,200 years were handed down to 165 prominent Brazilians, although only a fraction of those years was actually served.
In one of its final acts the investigation ensnared Lula, who had been president between 2003 and 2010, in a legally-fraught graft case that resulted in his imprisonment for almost two years.
At the height of his popularity, Moro was in 2019 appointed justice minister by hard-right president Jair Bolsonaro and on a pathway to even higher office.
Then things began to fall apart. Leaked messages from his time spearheading the corruption inquiry appeared to show him colluding with prosecutors and sharing information. The Supreme Court ruled that he was biased in his judgment of Lula. The leftwing leader’s conviction was annulled in 2021, initially due to jurisdictional issues, and the case later dropped completely due to time limits.
Moro also fell out of favour with the Brazilian right. Little more than a year into his stint as justice minister, he resigned amid a clash with Bolsonaro over the then-president’s alleged interference in police investigations.
Moro was voted in as senator for Paraná in late 2022, but has since been hamstrung by a lack of political allies and divisions within his Brazil Union party. With Lula returning to the presidency in the same elections, his Workers’ party (PT) soon began ratcheting up pressure on Moro.
Few on the left acknowledge the graft uncovered during the car wash investigation and instead blame Moro for the economic costs inflicted by his probe into some of Brazil’s biggest companies. They also claim the probe was a rightwing ploy to seize power.
“[Moro] fuelled the criminalisation of politics and destroyed companies and jobs,” Gleisi Hoffman, president of the PT, said last year. “Now the former judge will have to answer for this.”
A regional electoral court, acting on complaints from the PT as well as Bolsonaro’s Liberal party, will rule next month whether Moro exceeded campaign finance rules while preparing his bid for the Senate. If proven and upheld, Moro could lose his seat and be banned from running for office for eight years.
The Supreme Court will also hear a case against the former judge, after Justice Dias Toffoli, a former PT lawyer and once a target of the car wash investigation, launched an inquiry into whether Moro had committed fraud as part of plea deals struck during the probe. If convicted, Moro could be banned from politics, analysts say.
The case follows a separate verdict last year when Toffoli unilaterally nullified vast amounts of evidence obtained during the car wash probe, saying investigators had “disrespected due legal process and acted with bias”.
Political analysts say Moro’s travails are a combination of his own misconduct while he was a judge and his foes’ demand for retribution.
“Moro’s case has a bit of both. There is the fact that [during car wash] he took unacceptable actions. But we can also infer a certain degree of retribution. The political winds have changed,” said Bruna Santos, director of the Brazil Institute at the Wilson Center, a US think-tank.
Moro has pledged to fight the cases, but his days in the political limelight look numbered.
“I don’t wish him bad,” said Liberal party president Valdemar Costa Neto. “But there is no way out of this.”
Additional reporting by Beatriz Langella
Read the full article here
