The Briefing
- Tuesday's Supreme Court session opened to decide whether Justice Alexandre de Moraes should be investigated over his ties to Banco Master, but the bench never reached that question. Two justices removed themselves before any vote: Dias Toffoli stepped aside for personal reasons, and Kassio Nunes Marques declared himself unable to participate because he currently presides over Brazil's electoral court, while separately denying his son took money from the bank.
- Justice Flávio Dino, a Moraes ally, branded the Federal Police report that triggered the crisis an "illicit investigation" resting on evidence he called fabricated, then circulated a document alleging that André Mendonça, the justice who ordered that report, met Banco Master's jailed former owner the day before asking for more time on an unrelated case.
- Prosecutors asked the Court to scrap the same police report outright, arguing Mendonça had no authority to order it without a full-bench vote. That fight was still unresolved when the session broke for Brazil's legally mandated campaign-ad window and didn't reconvene until 2 p.m., with no vote on Moraes yet cast.
A Session Built to Decide Moraes' Fate Opens in Turmoil Instead
Brazil's Supreme Court convened at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Brasília for a session unlike any in its history: a decision on whether to open a formal investigation into one of its own, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, over messages he allegedly exchanged with Daniel Vorcaro, the jailed former owner of Banco Master. Chief Justice Edson Fachin, who took over as rapporteur of the case over the weekend, opened by warning colleagues that the Court's presidency "cannot choose the easiest path," pairing that appeal with a call for institutional restraint. He then read a Federal Police account describing indicia of a monitoring and influence network reaching into top Brazilian institutions. But by the time the justices broke for a scheduled recess, the fight that had consumed the morning wasn't about Moraes' guilt at all — it was about who else would still be sitting on the bench by the time anyone got to vote on it.
Two Justices Step Aside Before a Single Vote Is Cast
The first casualties of the morning were the justices themselves. Dias Toffoli, who has recused himself from Banco Master-linked cases since earlier this year, again declared suspeição, citing personal grounds. Kassio Nunes Marques went further, telling colleagues he considered himself impeded from voting altogether because he currently presides over the Superior Electoral Court in the run-up to October's elections; in the same breath, he denied that his son had received any money from Banco Master or performed work for the bank. Both exits came before the formal challenge that Moraes' allies had spent days preparing against him ever had to be filed on the floor.
The Real Fight: Whether the Police Report Itself Can Stand
Before the justices could weigh in on Moraes at all, the Prosecutor General's Office asked the Court to throw out the Federal Police report altogether. Its argument: André Mendonça, the justice who ordered the 200-plus-page document, had no constitutional authority to direct police to investigate a sitting colleague without the full Plenary's sign-off first. Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet went further in written submissions, arguing Mendonça knew Moraes' name would surface in the material from the start. "He knew Moraes was among them. He couldn't not have known," Gonet wrote of the timeline. If the Plenary sides with prosecutors, the report loses its legal force to support any action against Moraes before the merits are ever debated — which is why this procedural question, not the headline case, is what actually stalled Tuesday's session.
Dino Turns the Spotlight Back on the Justice Who Ordered the Report
Flávio Dino didn't stop at defending Moraes on procedural grounds. He told the plenary the police findings amounted to a genuinely unlawful investigation, built, he said, on unsubstantiated material. Then he escalated: Dino distributed a document to his colleagues alleging that Mendonça himself had met with Vorcaro the day before asking to delay an unrelated São Paulo cemetery-contracts case, a meeting he said was brokered by a third party. Gilmar Mendes confirmed receiving Dino's letter and told the plenary it would be circulated to every justice — turning a session meant to scrutinize Moraes into one where Mendonça's own conduct came under fire before his formal hearing, already scheduled for Sept. 23, even began.
Why Two More Justices Were Already Bracing for a Fight
None of this happened in a vacuum. Days before the session, reporting from Folha de S.Paulo and other outlets described a plan taking shape among justices aligned with Moraes — Gilmar Mendes, Dino and Cristiano Zanin — to have one of them raise a formal challenge questioning whether Nunes Marques and Luiz Fux could even cast votes, given their sons' documented links to Banco Master. A tax consultancy that paid legal fees to Nunes Marques' son, lawyer Kevin Marques, had itself received R$6.6 million from Banco Master, according to financial-intelligence records reviewed by multiple outlets. Fux's son, attorney Rodrigo Fux, had been a guest in Vorcaro's VIP box during Rio's 2025 Carnival parade and, separately, at a New York whiskey tasting Vorcaro paid for. Both Fux and Nunes Marques deny any conflict, and Nunes Marques's own exit Tuesday came through self-declared impediment tied to the TSE, not through a suspeição challenge from colleagues being formally upheld. Fux, for his part, spent Tuesday morning defending the Court's institutional standing against what he called federal police overreach, rather than addressing the allegations about his son directly.
What's Unresolved, and What Comes Next
The session broke shortly after 1 p.m. for Brazil's legally required campaign-advertising window, which every broadcaster carrying the proceedings, including the Court's own TV Justiça, must air ahead of October's election; it wasn't scheduled to resume until 2 p.m, but was again delayed to 3 p.m. Brasilia time. By the recess, the Plenary had not yet ruled on the prosecutors' nullity request, had not voted on Moraes, and had not formally taken up the suspeição strategy targeting Fux and Nunes Marques. Journalists were also barred from the courtroom itself for this session, a decision Dino publicly opposed. Separately, the Court's Sept. 23 hearing on Mendonça's own conduct — covering both the Banco Master case and unrelated allegations tied to an INSS pension fraud probe — remains on the calendar regardless of how Tuesday's procedural fight is ultimately resolved.
