Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Moraes Should Resign - 02/09/2026 - Opinion - Folha de S.Paulo

There is no longer a place on the Supreme Federal Court (STF) for Alexandre de Moraes. If the justice does not resign, it will be up to the Senate, through impeachment proceedings, to rid the court of this burden.

The limits of tolerance for the improper relationship between the justice and mafia figure Daniel Vorcaro (former banker and owner of Banco Master) had already been tested by what was known before the latest revelations. The R$131 million ($25.4 million) contract between Banco Master and Moraes’s wife’s law firm, along with the communications with the justice on the eve of the delinquent’s arrest, in a format that erases what was said, left little doubt about the seriousness of the relationship.

The torrent of abhorrent revelations that has just come before the public buries any remaining uncertainty about Moraes’s incompatibility with serving as a justice on the STF. While the fraudster enriched the Moraes family with stolen money, he treated the justice as an adviser and an informant.

In the police report investigating the case, the justice appears as the editor of the multimillion-real contract with his wife’s law firm, which negotiated another agreement, this one worth R$50 million, with another company owned by Vorcaro.

On the Saturday before his arrest by the Federal Police, the owner of Banco Master asked Moraes whether he should be out of the country on Monday. The back-and-forth of messages and flights suggests that personal meetings with the justice took place during the desperate final moments of the man responsible for the largest banking fraud in the country’s history.

Thanks to the persistence of the Federal Police, the press and Justice André Mendonça, the pact of impunity that has shielded Moraes from accountability is now seriously under threat. Unfortunately, there is little to expect from the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGR). Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet, who brazenly asked for the police report to be annulled, appears entangled in Master’s web of connections.

Now, however, a choice must be made between Alexandre de Moraes and the Supreme Federal Court, between an individual guilty of misconduct and the Republic. As long as the justice remains on the bench, dishonor and discredit will continue to pile up on the court. The most dignified and swift course would be for the justice to resign. That would spare the country’s institutions unnecessary and prolonged damage.

In the absence of such an act of selflessness, Senate President Davi Alcolumbre (União Brasil-AP) is being urged to move forward with the impeachment requests against Moraes, who will be entitled to the presumption of innocence, due process and all other legal guarantees.