The (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) rejected, this Tuesday (14), by 6 votes to 4, the indictment of the ministers of the (Supreme Federal Court), and.
The magistrates’ (MDB-SE) report based on the case of , but the text ended up being defeated after one, the government (PT) and the president of the Senate, (-AP).
At the same time that it affected the court ministers, the , businesspeople and politicians involved with , the former owner of Master
The report generated a series of reactions from members of the Supreme Court, who saw and returned to defending measures to restrict the powers of CPIs.
The indictment is the attribution of the commission of crimes to certain people. Even if approved by the CPI, it would not have the effect of immediately holding STF ministers accountable. But in practice, they would be named as suspects, with the suggestion that they be formally investigated.
The operation this Tuesday to reject Vieira’s text moments before the vote.
Opposition names and opponents of the STF were replaced by government ones — the senators (-PR) and Marcos do Val (Avante-ES) left and Teresa Leitão (PT-PE) and Beto Faro (PT-PA) entered. Furthermore, Soraya Thronicke (PSB-MS) became a starter replacing Jorge Kajuru (PSB-GO).
Leitão, Faro, Soraya, Humberto Costa (PT-CE), Rogério Carvalho (PT-SE) and Otto Alencar (PSD-BA) voted against the text. In favor, in addition to Vieira, Eduardo Girão (Novo-CE), Magno Malta (PL-ES) and Esperidião Amin (PP-SC) voted. The president of the CPI, Fabiano Contarato (PT-ES), did not vote.
The deadline for voting on the Organized Crime report was this Tuesday, given that Alcolumbre.
The CPI was originally created to investigate organized crime and the actions of factions, especially those linked to drug trafficking, but began to be used by senators to overcome resistance to the creation of a commission on the Master and his relations with authorities.
Vieira proposed in the final report an intervention in the .
Among the criticisms from senators aligned with the government was the fact that Vieira left out of the report the indictment of others involved in the case of the bank and criminal factions. The rapporteur even proposed that the indictments be voted on separately, to preserve majority support for the rest of the text, but Contarato did not accept the idea.
Vieira stated that it was a technical choice. He attributed crimes of responsibility to the three magistrates, which could justify impeachment requests.
In the document, the rapporteur says that Moraes and Toffoli acted “in a manner incompatible” with the honor, dignity and decorum of their functions due to the relationship they maintained with the Master. In Gilmar’s case, he pointed out that the minister would have suspended breaches of confidentiality by the CPI to protect his colleagues.
The report provoked reactions from government supporters — Gilmar, for example, said it caused “the rapporteur’s opinion”. Vieira stated that the judges’ statements represented threats and attempts to embarrass them.
The only people facing charges proposed by Vieira were the three ministers and the Attorney General of the Republic, . The senator claims that the head of the (Attorney General’s Office) failed to investigate authorities involved in the Master case.
The exchanges between Moro and Do Val at the CPI were made by the leader of the MDB, Eduardo Braga (AM), who is a government member and close to Alcolumbre. CPI seats in the Senate are divided proportionally between parliamentary blocs, which are blocs formed by parties.
The person who determines which senators will fill the vacancies of a given bloc is the leader of that bloc, but at a time when the bloc formed by MDB, PSDB, Podemos and União Brasil is undergoing a change of leadership, the changes were determined by Braga — who is deputy leader of the bloc and leader of MDB, the largest party in the group.
Senator Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), government leader and alternate on the commission, stated that the changes were made by the party leadership and that there was no relationship with the government.
Girão, also a substitute, said that the change was a “difficult maneuver to digest” and had Planalto’s fingerprints. He defended the approval of the text and accused “Lula’s shock troops” of acting to overthrow him.
Contarato, despite not having voted, also said he was against the indictment due to the lack of proof that there was fraud on the part of the ministers. Rogério Carvalho (PT-SE) stated that the report “is conveying this idea that it is revenge and that it is a political position”.
Wagner, when speaking, said that he would vote against “not to collaborate with the desire to attack the STF institution as many have done”. The government leader paid a series of compliments to Vieira, but questioned the lack of indictment of others involved in the Master, such as the former president of Roberto Campos Neto.
The senator stated that the CPIs are sometimes created to provide “the stage for political disputes” and not to seek the truth. Wagner said he agreed with Vieira that no one is untouchable, in reference to the STF ministers, but said that the rapporteur took a detour to a place, in his opinion, inappropriate.
Wagner also said he was calm about being mentioned in the report, as a company owned by his daughter-in-law received R$14 million from Master between 2021 and 2025. BN Financeira says it provided services to the bank to prospect operations and agreements.
If approved, the indictment would be sent to the presidency of the , which could determine whether or not a removal process for crimes of responsibility against the ministers and the attorney general would be opened. Alcolumbre, however, has always shown signs that he is against opening the impeachment process.
The rapporteur stated that the Banco Master case “constitutes, possibly, the biggest financial scandal in the recent history of Brazil” and shows the convergence between sophisticated financial crime and violent organized crime on a territorial basis.
“The Master case, however, is not limited to financial fraud. Its most serious dimension, from the point of view of the scope of this CPI, lies in the proof that sophisticated financial structures were used to launder money from criminal factions, notably , and for corruption”, says the report, which lists law firms and STF ministers.
