Journalists Threatened with Jail in Brazil as President Reacts to Damning Leaks
August 1, 2019
By John McEvoy
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro‘s furious response to the Intercept‘s damning ‘Lava Jato‘ leaks has signalled the country’s further descent into authoritarianism. And journalists face the threat of jail time as a result.
The leaks
Brazil’s massive corruption probe – Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato) – began in 2014. The Car Wash team insisted “that their only consideration was to expose and punish political corruption irrespective of party or political faction” in Brazil. But in June 2019, the Intercept began publishing leaked conversations of officials involved in the probe. The messages revealed that the supposedly neutral judge, Sérgio Moro, worked together with various Brazilian prosecutors to jail presidential front-runner Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, and prevent his Workers’ Party (PT) from securing election victory.
After winning the election in October 2018, Bolsonaro employed Moro – the man who jailed Lula – as his justice minister. The latest leaks are thus deeply embarrassing for the Brazilian government. In fact, they call into serious question the legitimacy of Bolsonaro’s presidency.
Furious response
After a brief leave of absence in early July, Moro returned to work to issue a new decreeagainst “dangerous foreigners”. Ominously named ‘decree number 666’, it is understood as a thinly veiled threat against Intercept co-founder and editor Glenn Greenwald – a US citizen who has lived in Brazil for over a decade.
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