Vaza Jato, roughly meaning Car Leaks, is the term used by the Brazilian press for leaked conversations in the Telegram app about the actions, decisions and positions of officials conducting investigations for Operation Car Wash. These officials include former judge Sérgio Moro and prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol. The conversations were reported by the journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept in June 2019. He believed this was one of the most important reports of his career. The transcripts of the private chats would indicate that Moro provided insider information to prosecutors, assisting the Federal Prosecutor's Office in building cases, as well as directing the prosecution, requesting operations against relatives of witnesses, suggesting modification in the phases of the Lava Jato operation. They also showed agility in new operations, strategic advice, providing informal clues, and resource suggestions to the MPF to convict the former Brazilian PresidentLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva on corruption charges. The leaks had wide repercussions. Sergio Moro, the Lava Jatotask force and the MPF, to defend themselves against the accusations, questioned the authenticity and origin of the data.
Chronology
On June 9, 2019, The Intercept published three articles showing internal discussions, coordinated by prosecutor Dallagnol, in collaboration with former judge Moro. The three articles were summarized in two articles into English: Part 1 and Part 2. The exchanges were highly controversial, politicized and legally dubious attitudes of the Lava Jato task force. The Intercept, in this phase, explains how and why they are publishing private chats about Lava Jato and Sergio Moro. The reporters also show that Lava Jato prosecutors secretly plotted to prevent Lula from interviewing before the elections for fear that he would help ‘elect Haddad’ and, additionally, that Dallagnol doubted the evidence against Lula and Petrobras' bribery hours before the denunciation of the triplex. In Part 4, the conversation shows that the judge, not the prosecutors, was in charge of the investigation. He suggested that investigators change the order of phases of the Lava Jato, called for agility in new operations, gave strategic advice and informal clues, anticipated a decision he would rectify, criticized and suggested appeals to the Public Prosecutor's Office and scolded Dallagnol. Investigative reports surfaced in the midst of a deep political, economic and social crisis that Brazil is going through. For years, various sectors of society have denounced deviations, abuses and unconstitutional actions committed by the Lava Jato operation. The following day, several representatives of the right-wing media, Globo, Fato or Fake, as well as Agência Lupa and the site Aos Fatos, attacked the veracity of some facts in the article. On June 12, 2019, Greenwald published the entire reserved dialogues, from October 2015 to September 2017, relevant to the report published on June 9. Telegram messages leaked between Moro and Dallagnol, now included Luis Fux, Minister of Justice of the Supreme Federal Court. The messages show evidence of pressure from Moro, current Justice Minister of Jair Bolsonaro, to speed up the ruling despite the lack of evidence. Moro stated, in order to calm down the prosecutors about an appeal: "In Fux we trust". Due to the political-party bias implicit in the dissemination of messages, on June 14, 2019, the left parties asked for the resignation of the Minister of Justice. Moro responded that he will not step down from his post and that he was the target of a cyber attack and that the country is facing "a crime in progress", promoted by a large professional criminal organization. On the same day, a Congressman from Bolsonaro's party explicitly was threatening Greenwald with arrest and/or deportation for reporting on the "massive improprieties of Bolsonaro's Justice Minister and the prosecutors who imprisoned Lula". Reacting to the Vaza Jato exposé, Rep. Ro Khanna and Sen. Bernie Sanders joined the Free Lula movement and each raised concerns over Lula's continued imprisonment and the Bolsonaro government's involvement in the scandal.
