After the guilty verdict from Moro was quickly affirmed by an appellate court, Lula’s candidacy was barred by law. With Lula out of the running, the
far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro shot up in the polls... Bolsonaro then named Moro, the judge who had presided over the case against Lula, to be his justice minister.
Telegram messages between Sergio Moro and Deltan Dallagnol reveal that Moro repeatedly stepped far outside the permissible bounds of his position as a judge while working on Car Wash cases...
In a now infamous moment, Dallagnol presented a typo-laden PowerPoint presentation
.... that showed “Lula” written in a blue bubble surrounded by 14 other bubbles containing everything from “Lula’s reaction” and “expressiveness” to “illicit enrichment” and “bribeocracy.” All arrows pointed back to Lula, whom they characterized as the mastermind behind a sprawling criminal enterprise. The presentation was widely spoofed and criticized by critics as evidence of the weakness of the Car Wash prosecutors’ case.
Two days later, Dallagnol messaged Moro and, in private, explained that they went to great lengths to characterize Lula as the “maximum leader” of the corruption scheme as a way to link the politician to the R$87 million (US$26.7 million, at the time) paid in bribes by OAS for contracts at two Petrobras refineries — a charge without material evidence, he admitted, but one that was essential so that the case could be tried under Moro’s jurisdiction in Curitiba.
The indictment is based on a lot of indirect evidence of authorship, but it wouldn’t fit to say that in the indictment and in our communications we avoided that point,” Dallagnol wrote. “It was not understood that the long exposition on command of the scheme was necessary to impute corruption to the former president. A lot of people did not understand why we put him as the leader to gain 3,7MM in money laundering, when it was not for that, but to impute 87MM of corruption.”
Moro responded two days later: “Definitely, the criticisms of your presentation are disproportionate. Stand firm.”
Even Lula’s most vehement critics, including those who believe him to be corrupt, have expressed doubts about the strength of this particular conviction. Many have argued that it was chosen as the first case because it was simple enough to process quickly, in time to fulfill the real goal: to bar Lula from being re-elected.