The investigations by the (Supreme Federal Court) against civil servants increased the climate of distrust between ministers of the court and sectors of the Lula government.
While magistrates suspect that they have been illegally investigated, with the IRS and Federal Police as targets of these assumptions, those responsible for the investigation fear being used as scapegoats in the Banco Master case.
After the minister determined that relatives up to the third degree of judges should be included, a wing of the STF wants to know whether information collected clandestinely was used to inform investigations carried out by the Federal Police.
Among members of the court, these suspicions do not fall on the top leadership of the Lula government. But ministers suspect that Revenue auditors have passed on tax data of members of the court and their relatives to investigators, without prior authorization from the court.
In practice, this procedure could allow questions about the investigation, harming the investigation of fraud committed by the Master and leading to severe punishment of auditors.
According to “several and multiple illicit accesses” to the Federal Revenue system, followed by subsequent leaks of confidential information.
For Lula’s allies, blaming the bodies would serve as an attempt to disqualify evidence contained in reports linking judges or their relatives to people involved in the .
The government is monitoring the situation carefully. The president’s aides recommend armor to prevent Planalto and ministries from being hit by shrapnel in the war between members of the STF, the Federal Police and, now, the Federal Revenue.
Last week, four tax officials were the target of a PF operation on suspicion of accessing confidential data. As shown by Sheetthe IRS’s tracking work and also gathered strong evidence that the information was transferred to third parties.
Members of the PT administration understand that the STF has the Revenue in its sights. Therefore, government emissaries have been working to reaffirm to the judges that there is no attempt to interfere in the process, despite the declared support for the work of , the Revenue and the PF. The ministers most bothered by the leaks are Moraes and Gilmar Mendes.
Lula’s assistants have told Supreme Court ministers that the breach of tax secrecy by IRS employees has no involvement from their leadership. And even though illegal access to data by employees who misuse the functional password is 100% traceable by the organization’s security systems, as occurred in this episode.
They state that the leaks are serious, but do not imply responsibility on the part of the Revenue for what is being investigated by the PF in the Master case. The assessment is that the incident of illegal access may even help to divert attention from the involvement of ministers with the owner of Master, Daniel Vorcaro, but that it will not work to place the Revenue as a scapegoat, as happened with the PF.
A Lula minister warns that the government cannot waste energy making institutions fight each other and that it should focus on Vorcaro, who committed misdeeds that will cost the banking system more than R$55 billion, in addition to the breach in the BRB (Bank of Brasília). The hole in the public bank will have to be covered with resources from the Federal District Government — ultimately, from the taxpayer.
In the opinion of Lula’s allies, the replacement in the rapporteurship of the Master case, which went from minister Dias Toffoli to André Mendonça —nominated to the court by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL)— will serve to mark this departure from the government.
Two weeks ago, the general director of the PF, Andrei Rodrigues, met with the president of the Supreme Court, minister Edson Fachin, and delivered a letter containing mention of Toffoli.
The climate of distrust of STF ministers has been present since last year. Two members of the court even complained about the material given to the president of the court. For the magistrates, this investigation was carried out illegally because it did not have authorization from the STF.
The IRS investigation was determined by Moraes precisely because of the minister’s suspicion that there could have been a breach of tax data linked to members of the court. The order came after the newspaper O Globo revealed the value of a million-dollar contract between the magistrate’s wife and Vorcaro and hers.
Afterwards, the environment at the STF worsened. The report presented by the investigators confirmed Toffoli’s departure from the Master case, but, even after the change of minister responsible for the case, the atmosphere is still one of distrust. A demonstration of this discomfort is Mendonça’s decision that limited access to documents to direct investigators, preventing referral to superiors.
