Former Brazil president Lula poised for corruption trial, associates fear

Jonathan Watts – The Guardian, 06/15/2016

Family members and associates of former Brazilian president Luiz Ináçio Lula da Silva fear he will soon be put on trial for what is alleged to be a central role in a massive corruption scheme at the state-run oil company Petrobras.

The Workers’ party leader – who is unquestionably the most influential figure in Brazil’s recent history – has been named in plea bargains by former allies and business executives who have been arrested in the Lava Jato investigation into revelations that construction firms secure inflated contracts in return for kickbacks to executives and politicians.

Among them is Delcídio do Amaral, the former Workers’ party leader in the upper house, who has recently testified that Lula – as he is universally known – attempted to impede the inquiry. The former senator, who was stripped of his mandate, told the Guardian he expected judges to make a decision shortly on his deposition.

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This Woman Holds the Key to the Fate of Brazil

Mac Margolis – Bloomberg, 06/13/2016

Until a couple of weeks ago, not many Brazilians had heard of Eronildes Vasconcelos. Fellow parishioners in Salvador, her home town in northeast Brazil, know the churchgoing 44-year-old widowand mother of two as a junior member of the country’s growing evangelical Christian congressional caucus.

But thanks to the unlikely role she’s been called on to play in shaping the outcome of Brazil’s widening political corruption scandal, Vasconcelos has become a national celebrity of sorts. Her every hosanna now galvanizes public attention from Twitter to the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia.

Vasconcelos — or Aunt Eron, as she prefers — is no power broker. She just happens to sit on the congressional ethics committee, where she’s wound up with the decisive vote on the fate of one of the country’s most notorious political operators, speaker of the lower house Eduardo Cunha.

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Brazil’s Gold Medal for Corruption

The Editorial Board – The New York Times, 06/06/2016

Michel Temer, Brazil’s interim president, displayed poor judgment on his first day in office last month when he appointed an all-white, all-male cabinet. This understandably angered many in racially diverse Brazil.

Their outrage was compounded by the fact that seven of the new ministershad been tainted by a corruption scandal and investigation that have shaken Brazilian politics. The appointments added to the suspicion that the temporary ouster of President Dilma Rousseff last month over allegations that she resorted to unlawful budget-balancing tricks had an ulterior motive: to make the investigation go away. Earlier this year, Ms. Rousseff said that allowing the inquiry into kickbacks at Petrobras, the state oil company, to run its course would be healthy for Brazil in the long run.

Two weeks after the new interim government was seated, Romero Jucá, Mr. Temer’s planning minister, resigned after a newspaper reported on a recorded phone conversation in which Mr. Jucá appeared to endorse the dismissal of Ms. Rousseff as part of a deal among lawmakers to “protect everyone” embroiled in the scandal. That was the only way, he said, to assure that Brazil “would return to being calm.” Late last month, Fabiano Silveira, the minister of transparency, charged with fighting corruption, was forced to resign after a similarly embarrassing leak of a surreptitiously recorded conversation.

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Brazil’s crusading corruption investigation is winding down

Sabrina Valle and Jessica Brice – Bloomberg, 05/04/2016

The crusading federal judge behind Brazil’s explosive corruption investigation, facing the limits of his mandate and signs of political pushback, sees his role in the case winding down by the end of the year, a turning point in a probe that has helped push the president to the brink of impeachment.

For more than two years, Judge Sergio Moro and his team of prosecutors and police in the southern town of Curitiba have tracked the $1.8-billion graft scandal across four continents. They uncovered a crime ring so epic that it shattered Brazil’s political and economic leadership and helped tip the nation into its worst recession in a century.

Now, legal challenges are chipping away at Moro’s jurisdiction over executives amid criticism that he’s over-reaching. Brazilian law also bars him from going after sitting politicians accused of graft. So he expects significantly fewer new operations under his watch starting next year, according to three top officials who asked not to be named relaying details from private conversations. The press-shy judge declined to comment.

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Brazil prosecutor vows to keep Petrobras corruption probe on course

Luciana Magalhaes and Reed Johnson – The Wall Street Journal, 04/26/2016

CURITIBA, Brazil—A member of the prosecutorial team spearheading Brazil’s landmark corruption investigation says he and his colleagues will press forward with the vast criminal probe, despite fears that a new government coalition might try to shut it down.

The future of Operation Car Wash, which uncovered a yearslong embezzlement ring centered on state oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, is among the questions raised by the prospect of President Dilma Rousseff being removed from office.

Ms. Rousseff, who was chairwoman of Petrobras during much of the alleged wrongdoing, hasn’t been implicated by prosecutors in the scandal. She faces impeachment on separate charges of violating federal budget laws, allegations that she denies.

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Brazil’s Attorney General recommends da Silva be barred from post

Reed Johnson and Marla Dickerson – The Wall Street Journal, 04/07/2016

SÃO PAULO—Brazil’s Attorney General recommended Thursday that former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva be barred from taking a cabinet post, undercutting President Dilma Rousseff just days before a critical impeachment vote.

In a 50-page report citing wiretapped conversations and other evidence, Attorney General Rodrigo Janot said there are “enough elements to conclude” that Ms. Rousseff had named Mr. da Silva as her chief of staff to shield him from possible arrest related to his alleged involvement in a massive corruption scandal.

The attorney general’s decision supports an opinion rendered last month by Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes that temporarily blocked Mr. da Silva’s cabinet appointment.

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Brazil’s Supreme Court crimps crusading Judge Sergio Moro’s pursuit of ex-leader

Reed Johnson and Luciana Magalhaes – Wall Street Journal, 04/01/2016

SÃO PAULO—Many Brazilians regard Judge Sergio Moro as a folk hero for his aggressive investigation of a giant corruption scandal implicating dozens of politicians and businessmen. But this week, Brazil’s Supreme Court dealt Mr. Moro a symbolic if incremental setback, telling him to hold off in his pursuit of his highest-profile target, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The cat-and-mouse contest between Mr. Moro and Mr. da Silva has riveted Brazilians since March 4, when the judge issued a warrant allowing federal police to detain the former president for questioning about his alleged role in the multiyear bid-rigging-and-bribery scheme surrounding state oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras.

Tensions escalated days later when President Dilma Rousseff offered Mr. da Silva, her political mentor, a cabinet post as chief of staff. The appointment, which is still in limbo due to another judge’s ruling, would effectively shield Mr. da Silva from prosecution, under a legal provision that ministers and sitting legislators can be investigated and indicted only by the Supreme Court.

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Time to go

The Economist- 03/26/2016

DILMA ROUSSEFF’S difficulties have been deepening for months. The massive scandal surrounding Petrobras, the state-controlled oil giant of which she was once chairman, has implicated some of the people closest to her. She presides over an economy suffering its worst recession since the 1930s, largely because of mistakes she made during her first term. Her political weakness has rendered her government almost powerless in the face of rising unemployment and falling living standards. Her approval ratings are barely in double digits and millions of Brazilians have taken to the streets to chant “Fora Dilma!”, or “Dilma out!”

And yet, until now, Brazil’s president could fairly claim that the legitimacy conferred by her re-election in 2014 was intact, and that none of the allegations made against her justified her impeachment. Like the judges and police who are pursuing some of the most senior figures in her Workers’ Party (PT), she could declare with a straight face her desire to see justice done.

Now she has cast away that raiment of credibility (seearticle). On March 16th Ms Rousseff made the extraordinary decision to appoint her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to be her chief of staff. She portrayed this as a shrewd hire. Lula, as he is known to all, is a canny political operator: he could help the president survive Congress’s attempt to impeach her and perhaps even stabilise the economy. But just days before, Lula had been briefly detained for questioning at the order of Sérgio Moro, the federal judge in charge of the Petrobras investigation (dubbed lava jato, or “car wash”), who suspects that the former president profited from the bribery scheme (see Bello). Prosecutors in the state of São Paulo have accused Lula of hiding his ownership of a beach-front condominium. He denies these charges. By acquiring the rank of a government minister, Lula would have partial immunity: only the country’s supreme court could try him. In the event, a judge on the court has suspended his appointment.

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More than a million Brazilians protest against ‘horror’ government

Jonathan Watts – The Guardian, 03/13/2016

More than a million Brazilians have joined anti-government rallies across the country, ramping up the pressure on embattled president Dilma Rousseff.

Already struggling with an impeachment challenge, the worst recession in a century and the biggest corruption scandal in Brazil’s history, the Workers party leader was given another reason to doubt she will complete her four-year term.

The demonstrations on Sunday – which reached all 26 states and the federal district – were expected to be bigger than similar rallies last year. The largest took place in São Paulo, where the polling company Datafolha estimated the crowd at 450,000, more than double the number it registered last year.

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Judge rallies Brazil to anti-graft war

Geoff Dyer – Financial Times, 9/01/2015

The Brazilian judge at the centre of the investigation into widespread corruption at Petrobras has been rallying public support for the probe just as the impact on the economy from the scandal is starting to become clearer.

In a series of events in São Paulo in recent days where he received rapturous receptions, Sérgio Moro called on the public to continue supporting the Petrobras investigation and insisted that corruption was the real danger to the economy, not its prosecution.

“Confronting systematic corruption will bring significant gains for all of us, for companies and for the economy in general,” he said at a conference of business executives on Monday. “The cost of systematic corruption is extraordinary.”

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