The process that investigates ministers of the (Supreme Federal Court), authorities and public figures received the maximum level of secrecy in the court.
According to the Supreme Court, level 4 of secrecy — on a scale that starts at 0, for public processes — is due to the existence of “sensitive information from Coaf”.
The classification even prevents the official nomination of the case’s rapporteur in the court system — although, in this specific case, it is known that the person responsible for the case is the minister.
The secrecy levels are defined in resolution 878/2025, of July 2025. The only one in which the rapporteur’s name is hidden in the public consultation on the STF portal is 4.
A Sheet asked the court about how many processes had already received level 4 secrecy, but did not receive a response until the publication of this report.
For experts, secrecy may be justifiable, but it should not prevent the defense of those being investigated from having access to decisions on precautionary measures that directly affect them. This is what Washington lawyer Travassos de Azevedo claims, under suspicion of being one of the masterminds of the data leak, as revealed this Saturday (21) by Sheet.
Eric Cwajgenbaum, who represents Washington, claims he did not have access to either decision against his client. The accountant was searched and seized on March 2nd, began to be monitored by an electronic ankle monitor on the 6th and was arrested on the 13th, without having, until this Sunday (22nd), access to the basis of the decisions.
“A week has passed without any request for access having been responded to. The minister’s office informed by email that there is no date available for dispatch and not even the decision decreeing preventive detention has been shown. Almost three weeks have passed without my requests even being considered. The case is serious. The violations of prerogatives are many”, he told Sheet.
The STF did not take a position on the restriction of access to decisions by the accountant’s defense. According to the resolution, the minister-rapporteur can authorize lawyers to access specific parts of the process.
Lawyer Tatiana Stoco, who is a professor at Insper, says it is unusual to keep an arrest order confidential.
“The defense must have access, at least, to the decision that decreed the arrest. Now, since this is at the instance of the STF, I don’t see where this defense can turn, if not within the STF itself, to try to allege illegality and seek release”, he says.
Based on the report from SheetStoco says it is likely that the accountant was arrested due to flight risk or some contemporary danger, as he was already wearing an ankle bracelet.
The lack of access to the records by the defense was also criticized by lawyer Fernando Castelo Branco, professor at PUC-SP (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo), who considers the episode alarming for not following due legal process.
For him, the case should not be judged by Moraes, because he is an ordinary person and because the STF minister’s relatives are supposedly victims.
“Why is the Federal Supreme Court the competent judicial body to investigate these facts? No, it would be the Federal Court. One of the victims is the wife of minister Alexandre de Moraes. He is indirectly a victim of these leaks, and he is putting himself in the position of investigator and authority to order the arrests. It is nonsense”, he says.
The fact that Moraes gave the decision in a petition related to , was also criticized by lawyers.
“It seems to me that his report is very broad. It has already covered numerous cases in which he had some more direct involvement. I have not seen the STF move towards redirecting, redistributing these cases. On the contrary. It is a very sui generis situation [única] really,” says Stoco.
Branco assesses that the use of monocratic decisions in a collegial body, such as the Supreme Court, reinforces the minister’s arguments for a code of ethics for court members.
“When the president of the Supreme Court speaks in defense of a code of conduct, it is not by chance. The excesses of some have become an extremely worrying source for the democratic rule of law and our democracy”, he states.
The investigation began after a decision by the magistrate to ensure that the tax data of around one hundred people, including STF ministers and family members, could be breached in their systems.
O, which motivated the operations against suspects in the case. Among those investigated are a server from Serpro (a state-owned data processing company), technicians and even a IRS security guard.
In addition to the arrest in Washington, it is known that they were targets of search and seizure, with the installation of electronic ankle monitors.
