The Briefing
- Right-wing rallies drew an estimated 28,500 to 34,200 people to São Paulo's Avenida Paulista on Sept. 7, Brazil's Independence Day, with organizers demanding Justice Alexandre de Moraes' removal from the Supreme Court.
- At the center of the crisis is a roughly $25 million legal contract between a bank tied to jailed financier Daniel Vorcaro and the law firm of Moraes' wife, which file metadata ties to an edit made under the justice's own name.
- One day after the rallies, fellow Justice André Mendonça suspended Brazil's federal police director and its intelligence chief, accusing them of producing unauthorized reports on sitting justices — a move President Lula's government is now fighting in court.
- Supreme Court President Luiz Edson Fachin has given Moraes, Mendonça, the federal prosecutor general and the ousted police chief until Friday, Sept. 11, to explain themselves before he decides whether the full 11-justice bench will take up the case.
A Divided Independence Day
Brazil's Sept. 7 Independence Day this year doubled as a campaign showcase and a referendum on the country's top court. On Avenida Paulista in São Paulo, presidential candidate and Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro headlined a rally against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the magistrate who secured his father Jair Bolsonaro's 2025 coup-plot conviction. Analysts with the University of São Paulo's Monitor do Debate Político protest-tracking project, using aerial-image analysis, put peak attendance at 28,500 people, with a margin that placed the crowd between roughly 25,100 and 32,000. Poder360's own aerial-photo count for the same event came in higher, at 34,200 supporters — both figures well below the nearly 50,000 who turned out for the equivalent 2025 rally on the same avenue.
Bolsonaro's vice-presidential pick, Congressman Alfredo Gaspar, tied the president directly to the embattled justice, telling the crowd: "There is no Lula without Alexandre, nor Alexandre without Lula." Bolsonaro himself called Moraes a "rotten apple" and labeled the justice's chambers a persecution unit, framing his own candidacy as a push to restore trust in the courts.
Two other presidential hopefuls also took to São Paulo's streets that day, but pointedly not alongside Bolsonaro. Novo party candidate Romeu Zema led a morning walk down the same avenue hours before Bolsonaro's afternoon rally, while Missão candidate Renan Santos held a competing protest across town at the Ibirapuera obelisk, calling for the removal of Moraes, fellow Justice Dias Toffoli, the federal police director and the prosecutor general alike. Santos had publicly ruled out appearing alongside Bolsonaro days earlier, arguing that the senator's own campaign is entangled in the same banking scandal driving the protests. Beyond São Paulo, similar rallies unfolded in roughly a dozen other state capitals, though tallies from different outlets range as high as 15 planned events nationwide.
The Contract Under the Microscope
The anger traces back to a legal-services agreement between the now-liquidated Banco Master and Barci de Moraes Advogados, the law firm run by Viviane Barci de Moraes, the justice's wife. Metadata inside the contract file, examined by federal police and reported by outlet Agora RN, traces the document's last edit to a profile registered under the justice's own name, and the law firm has confirmed Moraes reviewed the draft before it was signed. The deal called for payments that could reach roughly R$131 million, or about $25 million, over three years — a monthly retainer that a group of veteran compliance and criminal-law attorneys, interviewed by a separate outlet, described as well outside typical market rates for the work described.
A 218-page federal police report built from financier Daniel Vorcaro's seized phone, unsealed by Mendonça on Sept. 1, documents what investigators count as eight confirmed in-person meetings between Vorcaro and Moraes across 2024 and 2025, out of roughly 16 possible encounters the messages reference, plus more than 50 exchanged texts. In one message reviewed by investigators, Vorcaro told an intermediary he needed the protection of federal police director Andrei Rodrigues and prosecutor general Paulo Gonet — a passage that prompted Mendonça to formally ask the Prosecutor General's Office for clarification about both officials named in it.
Petitions Pile Up in the Senate
Lawmakers reacted fast. During a Sept. 1 floor session, senators including Carlos Viana, Damares Alves, Esperidião Amin, Flávio Bolsonaro and Alessandro Vieira called for Moraes' impeachment or resignation, with the Senate's own newsroom quoting Vieira describing the justice as "a legal corpse, a political corpse." Vieira followed up on Sept. 2 with a formal petition seeking Moraes' removal and an eight-year ban from public office; it launched with roughly 19 co-signing senators and had grown to at least 21 within the week, according to regional outlet Brasil em Folhas.
Poder360's tracker, which counts petitions filed since a 2021 reset when the sitting Senate president archived the prior backlog, put active requests against Moraes at 55 this week, out of 109 pending against all ten sitting justices — a figure Senate President Davi Alcolumbre himself cited when he told reporters the volume "is not normal," in a remark that referred only to the combined total, not to a breakdown by justice. A separate historical tally from outlet Congresso em Foco, which folds in older petitions that were previously archived rather than counting only those still active, puts the lifetime count against Moraes specifically at 66. Only one petition against a sitting justice has ever been formally rejected outright — filed by then-President Jair Bolsonaro in 2021 — and Alcolumbre has given no sign he intends to schedule a vote on any pending request.
Fachin's Friday Deadline — and a Reciprocal Complaint
The conflict is no longer one-directional. After Mendonça lifted secrecy on the police report on Sept. 1 and formally referred it to the full bench on Sept. 6, Moraes counterattacked: on Sept. 3 he asked that Mendonça himself be investigated, alleging his colleague had misused federal police intelligence work to target Moraes and other justices over their handling of the Banco Master case and a separate pension-fraud probe. Court President Luiz Edson Fachin folded both complaints into a single proceeding and gave Moraes, Mendonça, Gonet and federal police director Andrei Rodrigues five business days to submit written clarifications, a window that closes Friday, Sept. 11. Only after that will Fachin decide whether — and when — the full court takes up either case; most court-watchers now expect any plenary session to land after Sept. 22, putting a ruling within striking distance of the Oct. 4 first-round vote.
A Police Purge Deepens the Standoff
The fight escalated sharply the day after Fachin set his deadline. On Sept. 8, Mendonça ordered the preventive removal of federal police director Andrei Rodrigues and intelligence chief Leandro Almada, accusing their agency of producing unsigned, unauthorized intelligence dossiers on sitting justices — the same reports Moraes had leaned on to accuse Mendonça of abuse of power days earlier. Mendonça called the episode one of "superlative gravity" and ordered internal disciplinary and criminal inquiries into how the documents were compiled.
Because Rodrigues was Lula's own appointee, the move pulled the presidency directly into the court fight. The government's legal team, the Advocacia-Geral da União, appealed to Fachin the same day, arguing that naming and removing the federal police chief is the president's exclusive prerogative under Brazilian law. A three-justice majority on the court's Second Panel initially sided with Mendonça, but the proceeding stalled after Justice Gilmar Mendes requested more time to review the case — a procedural pause that can legally run up to 90 days, meaning Rodrigues' removal stands for now even without a final, formal ruling.
Lawyers Split, and a Meeting Falls Through
Brazil's bar association is similarly divided. Its national Federal Council struck a cautious note, saying it was tracking the crisis with alarm and calling for a fair, thorough inquiry "regarding whoever may be involved," without naming anyone for removal. Four state chapters — Paraná, Rondônia, Ceará and Santa Catarina — went further and explicitly called for Moraes' precautionary removal while the case proceeds; Paraná and Rondônia additionally argued Gonet should be barred from the case given his own appearance in Vorcaro's messages. A wider group of chapters, including Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Pará, Goiás, Pernambuco, Amazonas and Rio de Janeiro, called only for a rigorous, independent inquiry without endorsing removal. A planned Sept. 9 sit-down between Fachin and the bar association's national leadership, meant to air these concerns directly, was postponed by the court with no new date set.
What Happens Next
No one has been formally charged, and Moraes has not publicly addressed either the messages or the contract. What has changed since the Sept. 7 rallies is the sheer number of institutions now examining the same set of facts at once — street protesters, senators, prosecutors, the bar and, as of this week, the court's own police-oversight machinery — with the Oct. 4 first-round vote, and a possible Oct. 25 runoff, still ahead. For Brazilian-American readers and dual nationals following the race, how this plays out will shape confidence in the same court that settled the country's last presidential-election dispute.
