The Supreme Federal Court is imposing a state of legal savagery on Brazil, unprecedented in its 135 years as a Republic, through sheer brute force. Unfortunately, this is not merely an opinion; opinions can be wrong—and often are. Facts, however, remain facts—they simply exist. Everyone has the right to believe that two plus two equals seven or that water boils at 45 degrees Celsius. That’s the kind of reality the STF seems to suggest. But two plus two will always equal four, and water will undeniably boil at 100 degrees Celsius. Nothing should change that, right? Wrong. The Supreme Court does alter this reality, effectively undermining the country’s law and order.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes and his colleagues at the STF want you to believe that a group of 37 people — just enough to fill a bus — intended to overthrow the government in Brazil. This notion defies rationality — and always will. It’s impossible to topple a government without a single soldier moving, without deploying a tank, and without issuing any specific orders to the authorities. No military coup has ever succeeded if the entire Army opposed it. You can’t execute a coup with a budget of R$100,000 — it’s simply impossible.
Any doubts can be dispelled with a cursory reading of the 880 pages of accusations that the Federal Police recently sent to the Attorney General’s Office (PGR). In this case, the police and Public Prosecutor’s Office are merely executing orders that they’ve been receiving continuously for two years from Justice Moraes — who, notably, assumes the roles of assassination attempt victim, head investigator, prosecutor, and judge, a scenario unheard of in any civilized country on the planet. The total evidence gathered by the Federal Police, objectively speaking, ranges from zero to the square root of zero.
What the police presented after nearly 700 days of investigation falls short of the antics of the great Tubby Tompkins when he would disguise himself as a turntable or the Abominable Snowman to investigate delinquencies he inevitably pinned on Little Lulu’s father, the amiable Mr. Moppet. Detective Tubby Tompkins was wrong 100% of the time; he never solved a single case accurately. The coup inquiry is treading a similar path. It manages to move from the first word to the last without a single logical accusation, without any evidence that could be taken seriously in a democratic court, and, above all, without any coherent link to its primary accused, former president Jair Bolsonaro.
All the police managed to present in their report, a mishmash written in primitive Portuguese and lacking any trace of logical analysis or intelligent thought, are nonsensical conversations between a bunch of subordinates who lacked the authority to order even a night watchman around — nec caput nec pedes, as the justices might say in their high school Latin. Did they say what the Federal Police claim? Perhaps they did, but so what? These dialogues are merely demonstrations of aggravated mental chaos, akin to internet claims that China has a secret Moon base, that Brazil needs a “bloodbath” to “cleanse politics,” or that John Lennon is alive somewhere — that’s about it.
There is no order, not even spoken, from Bolsonaro approving Lula’s assassination by poisoning, the most serious accusation by the Federal Police in the inquiry, nor any of the delusions attributed to the 37 alleged coup plotters. There’s no mention of what type of poison would be used or why military leaders, all with legal access to firearms, would need poison to execute their plan. Supposedly, a priest from Osasco was part of the coup’s “legal core.” A priest in the “legal core”? Why a priest? Incidentally, the coup was supposed to have “six cores.” None of the accused, anywhere, mentions any core. It was the Federal Police that concocted the “cores” and presented their invention as proof of the crime.
It’s unclear, as it has been from the start, why Bolsonaro didn’t carry out the coup he’s accused of while he was President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. At no point in the inquiry is there any evidence that he attempted to issue orders in this direction, directly or indirectly. If he genuinely wanted to prevent Lula’s inauguration and cling to power, why did he leave office before his term officially ended, travel to the United States, and only then supposedly attempt a coup—with neither a single military detachment nor the backing of Army generals, air brigadiers, and fleet admirals, but rather a mob of delivery boys, barbers, and even an autistic person? It’s a mystery. The Federal Police offers no theories.
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One of the least convincing pieces of evidence—yet presented as the crown jewel by both the police and the judiciary—is the so-called “coup draft.” This draft was a request to Congress to authorize a “state of emergency” or something similar—a request never submitted to anyone, so insignificant it was forgotten among the papers of a former Bolsonaro minister, who is also accused in the coup. The Federal Police further claims, as if irrefutably proving the crime, that the conspirators printed in the Planalto Palace incriminating documents of the crimes they intended to commit and then either forgot to throw them away or tried and failed. Why would they create and retain evidence against themselves? There’s no explanation.
The fate reserved for Justice Alexandre de Moraes by the coup plotters has continuously shifted in the Federal Police investigation. At one point, he was supposedly to be hanged in the Praça dos Três Poderes—the first execution by hanging in Brazil since 1876. Then, or perhaps earlier, he was to be assassinated on the road from Brasília to Goiânia. In the latest version, Moraes is still marked for death, though details are vague. In reality, the only deaths associated with coup attempts have been the “Unabomber of Brasília,” who committed suicide with fireworks in front of the STF, and Cleriston da Cunha, a “January 8” detainee who died in the Papuda penitentiary yard due to a lack of urgent medical care—requested by doctors and the Public Prosecutor’s Office and ignored by Moraes. As for actual crime victims, the only known one is Bolsonaro himself, who was nearly killed in 2018 when he was stabbed in the stomach.
Examine any page of the inquiry—it only gets worse. One offense that particularly scandalizes Moraes and his police is the “discredit”‘ in the Superior Electoral Court’s electronic voting machines. According to the Federal Police’s findings, there was even a “core” dedicated to this, like the one involving the priest from Osasco. Indeed, there was significant discredit, and it persists as millions of voters remain baffled by the STF’s insistence that no improvements can be made to a mechanical device. Just as citizens swear loyalty to the national flag, it has become almost “law” in Brazil to pledge allegiance to Justice Moraes’s voting machines, despite no legal requirement or criminal implication—it’s simply a tremendous absurdity.
What kind of crime is it, under Brazilian law, to distrust or dislike a machine? It makes no sense, yet it’s the official accusation from electoral officials who barred Bolsonaro from running for office until 2030. This is now part of the myriad accusations aimed at sentencing the former president to a total of 28 years in prison. The truth is elections under the STF authority are not even open to public scrutiny. For practical purposes, votes are counted in secret, reminiscent of Venezuela. It is humanly impossible and very risky to oversee the counting. In the United States, during Donald Trump’s election, there were 500 party lawyers present at ballot boxes and during vote counting. Here, when the Liberal Party legally requested a partial recount, they were fined R$22 million by Moraes without their lawyers having the chance to speak or the right to due process.
It’s akin to African tribal justice in Tarzan’s time. “Krig-ha bandolo, tarmangani!” shouts Moraes from his perch atop perpetual inquiries, commanding obedience from all, including his plenary colleagues, under threat of prosecution for “anti-democratic acts” by the STF. This is the prevailing spirit, from beginning to end, in the Federal Police inquiry into the so-called military coup, which will enter world history as “the coup that never happened.” In the end, it’s quite simple. In nearly 900 pages, there is no evidence of any crime—and everything they managed to demonstrate with a shred of coherence isn’t criminal.
Alexandre de Moraes is far from being the only author in this farcical operetta. He leads indeed, but there’s a whole crowd eager to follow. The Attorney General’s Office is first in line, showing as much capacity for impartiality in this process as a cheerleader refereeing their own team’s game. Logically, based on the facts, the Public Prosecutor’s Office should dismiss the entire Federal Police-Moraes coup inquiry; if accused the same way as Bolsonaro and others have been, a drug trafficking detainee would be released instantly due to the investigation’s high ineptitude. Imagine the expression on the faces of prosecutors from a serious country faced with the disarray presented by the Federal Police. “What is this?” they’d ask. “Have you been drinking?”
Nothing demonstrates more clearly the true role of the PGR in this episode than the recent outburst from the Deputy Prosecutor of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the Court of Auditors. It might sound unbelievable, but it is indeed a fact: he dared to request, in writing, that all state-paid salaries of the indicted be withheld. He also seeks to freeze all their assets to guarantee the R$56 million in fines that, according to high judiciary calculations, the accused coup plotters would owe for the damage they supposedly caused to the nation—a sum not derived from any judicial decision. We seem to be back in Tarzan’s jungle.
What does “withheld salaries” mean here? None of the STF’s alleged coup plotters have been convicted of anything yet; in fact, none have even been formally charged by the PGR with any crime. Judges in Mato Grosso do Sul accused of selling sentences continue to receive every cent of their R$200,000 monthly salaries punctually, or sometimes more, justified by the fact that they haven’t been convicted. How can one understand why the PGR demands the opposite in the case of the coup that never happened? Those financially dependent on the accused, who need their salaries to survive, are guilty of no crime. How can they be penalized when they did nothing wrong? How come they can’t even access their existing bank funds? The reasoning becomes clear when considering who demands the freezing: a deputy prosecutor who, during Bolsonaro’s four years in office, made 539 requests to block official acts from Planalto Palace, averaging one every three days.
This reflects the level of professionalism and impartiality of our PGR. Its chief was, for all intents and purposes, practically appointed by Moraes. He is also a former partner of Justice Gilmar Mendes in the private law course business. Equally questionable are the legal specialists who eagerly seek out reporters to give interviews praising Moraes and the STF, focusing primarily on boosting their law firms’ profits. They do so, largely, in a particularly despicable manner. They starkly contrast with the honorable lawyers who courageously defend, often without charge, those imprisoned by the STF. Despite being marked for death in the Supreme Court, these defenders maintain their integrity.
Among Moraes’s allies, perhaps none have sunk as low in flattery, irrationality, and deception as much as the majority of the Brazilian press. Not even on April 1, 1964, were there so many journalists so eager to embrace the narrative spun by the Federal Police and the judiciary or to shout out for the powerful while shooting the wounded. In the latest chapter of this so-called military coup, the media, which prides itself on being “responsible,” has reported little more than sheer hysteria. Not a single police statement has been professionally scrutinized or questioned by journalists. No “fact-checking agency” has examined anything at all. If editors had sent trained chimpanzees equipped with recorders to listen to the Federal Police, the outcome would be the same.
“Lipstick is a ‘flammable substance,’“ declare the Federal Police and the judiciary. “Then it is a flammable substance,” echo most of the media. “Marbles are a ‘cold weapon,’“ they assert. “Then it is a cold weapon,” repeat journalists. Vaccination certificates are declared intricately linked to the coup, and thus, everything is presented in newspapers, on television, and on the radio. It’s a historic blunder that cannot be erased — it’s documented, recorded, and signed, standing as evidence of the moment when the police became the press and vice versa.
This marks the funeral of the rule of law, an unprecedented national and international humiliation for the country and for Brazilians. Consider this test: assemble a panel from ten civilized countries and present them with the STF, PGR, and Federal Police inquiry. What do you think would happen? They would unanimously ditch the entire investigation. They might even alert Interpol. How can Brazil demand respect when corrupt companies are fined $3.5 billion in the United States for their crimes, yet are reimbursed the stolen money here by an exclusive STF decision? Is this merely an opinion, or a fact?
In essence, this is the country that the STF is imposing on Brazilian citizens. The only legal certainty the “supreme court” has established is security for the corrupt and their enablers; the justices ensure that no one will ever face punishment for embezzling public funds, especially if the offender aligns with the ‘progressive camp.’ In every other regard, the STF guarantees nothing, regardless of the law, logic, or common morality. Justice Moraes’s actions unequivocally ensure that the guilty are solely those he designates; they are condemned even before trial and sentencing. In time, the world will likely become aware of these details, in the short, medium, and long term.
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