Supreme Court Justices Moraes and Toffoli Cannot Vote in Full-Bench Session - 10/09/2026 - Opinion - Folha de S.Paulo

Having cleared the initial stage of clarifying the extremely serious allegations against Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, attention must now be paid to possible attempts to sabotage the procedure announced by Supreme Court Chief Justice Edson Fachin.

The biggest trap appears to have been avoided: repeating a secret session like the one in February that cleared Dias Toffoli. It will be harder to strike deals in broad daylight.

But the covert battle is not over. One way of trying to sweep the elephant under the rug would be to consider only the opinion of Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet, without examining the substance of the Federal Police’s forensic report. Gonet was quick to deem invalid the report that identified Moraes as an interlocutor of mobster Daniel Vorcaro.

The prosecutor is not impartial on the matter. He is mentioned in the Federal Police report in situations involving his proximity to the fake banker’s entourage, one of them concerning the inclusion of his son in a Master open bar in London. The phrase "Yay!!! Hopefully there are cigars and Macallan!" instantly became a classic of the scandal.

Another crucial issue is which of the 10 justices will be barred from deliberating on whether to open the police investigation.

In theory, it is simple. Toffoli, who after a full-bench session stripped him of the case’s rapporteurship has declared himself recused from the Master case, has no reason to change course. Moraes, obviously, should not vote in a case involving Moraes.

Given Moraes’s moves —and Flávio Dino’s outlandish attempt to overrule the Second Panel’s decision to remove the Federal Police director-general—, there is speculation at the Supreme Court about an effort to remove André Mendonça from the vote.

The initiative would allege a conflict of interest involving Mendonça in the case because he allegedly prejudged matters and selected targets while serving as rapporteur of the Master investigation.

The evidence cited for this speculation is bogus. It is based on the actions of a parallel police apparatus and on unauthenticated documents with no evidentiary value.

What must be assessed on the 15th are, and only are, their honors, the facts. They show the exorbitant R$131 million hiring of the Moraes family’s law firm; that the contract was modified by the user "Minister Alexandre de Moraes"; that there are 52 messages sent from Vorcaro’s cellphone to the contact "Alexandre de Moraes BRASÍLIA," with whom the criminal communicated as if he were speaking to his personal adviser; that five were sent on the eve of the fraudster’s arrest, always using a mode that disappears after being viewed; and that in those exchanges Vorcaro asked for measures to escape the law.

Any citizen, faced with such indications, would already be under police investigation —a preliminary stage that is not the same as guilt or conviction. In a republic, a Supreme Court justice cannot be treated differently from any other citizen.