Alexandre de Moraes' anti-Lula mission

To this day, Brazilians remain deprived of rational explanations and reliable information about the real criteria that led Luiz Fachin to assume the role of rapporteur in the Lava Jato case. Even the random nature of the selection by lottery cannot be guaranteed. In this context, the situation of Alexandre Moraes, the candidate to fill Teori Zavascki's position for the next 25 years, constitutes a more serious and permanent one.   

This represents a frivolous initiative from a legal standpoint and an irresponsible one from a political standpoint. It also suggests that Michel Temer decided to use the Supreme Court vacancy as an opportunity for a government that had already become a constant source of wear and tear, which is absurd when one considers the unique importance a Supreme Court justice holds in the lives of 206 million Brazilians. 

The blatant purpose is to guarantee judicial protection for the Temer government and its allies, who are at risk of political ruin, in a context where large construction companies are beginning to speak out and Eduardo Cunha has only just begun to open his mouth. Should it be approved by the Senate—it's never too much to dream of a final gesture of political dignity from an institution that has given so many proofs of weakness and subservience to spurious interests—Alexandre Moraes will fulfill the priority task for which he has been assigned.

This is not about paralyzing Lava Jato, as allies of Sérgio Moro and Rodrigo Janot like to say, but above all about building a safety net around the corruption allegations. From the beginning, the issue has been ensuring the continued selective and targeted nature of the investigations against the Workers' Party and its allies, a focus that has been part of the essence of the investigations, convictions, and imprisonments from the start.

This is called anti-Lula and its timeline is 2018.

Understanding this perspective explains the acceptance—growing, it must be admitted—by the self-appointed Brazilian elite of a nomination that should be a scandal, even if one can remember that there was an even worse alternative, marked by a candidate who was a late offspring of the Inquisition and the bonfires of intolerance.  

It's 2+2=4: due to a procedural matter, filling the current Supreme Court vacancy automatically grants the right to act as a reviewer of Lava Jato. The nominee can use all arguments—including those legitimate in theory—to save those they don't want to send to the stake.

In another circumstance, with different foundations and principles, this was a role that Ricardo Lewandowski played in 2012, in AP 470, with great difficulty and sometimes commendable results, but insignificant in practice. In Lava Jato, the review will serve another purpose: to save those who, for services rendered to the current order of things since the time of Pedro Álvares Cabral, have the right to wait for a place in the lifeboat in the midst of shipwreck – whatever their guilt or responsibility. It is a task that requires cold blood and no shame. Whatever the gravity of the accusations, infinitely greater than anything seen so far, it is worth remembering that the noisiest phase of the media circus has already passed.

In this context, no initiative will be overlooked in order to consolidate the state of exception, which implies transforming the highest court of Justice into a tribunal that is pompous in form but empty in content.

Alexandre Moraes's time as Secretary of Public Security for the São Paulo state government was marked by police violence and the increasing criminalization of social movements. His tenure as Minister of Justice will never be forgotten due to his inability to present a single useful proposal to address a massacre that signaled the collapse of the Brazilian prison system. Alexandre Moraes earned a seat in the honor tribune of the coup coalition after a blatant declaration announcing, 24 hours in advance, the arrest of Antônio Palocci, behavior that prompted an investigation by the Ethics Commission of the Presidency of the Republic that yielded nothing. He told journalists, in a celebratory tone: "This week, you will remember me," he declared, while passing through Ribeirão Preto, the hometown of Lula's first Finance Minister—today one of the great hopes for the political destruction of Brazil's most popular politician.