Gonet Keeps Banco Master Role, but Narrow Vote Deepens Rift

Gonet Keeps Banco Master Role, but Narrow Vote Deepens Rift
Brazil’s Superior Council of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office rejected a request to open an investigation into Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet by five votes to four, while unanimously declining to remove him from Banco Master-related proceedings. The request followed messages found by federal police in which former banker Daniel Vorcaro mentioned Gonet and police chief Andrei Rodrigues; the reporting says there is no evidence that either intervened in the investigation.

For Gonet’s defenders, the outcome is a decisive institutional answer. Justice Gilmar Mendes said the council had confirmed that “nothing prevented the Prosecutor-General from continuing to act in the Banco Master proceedings,” and argued that Gonet’s reputation had been unfairly damaged after Justice André Mendonça lifted secrecy around the conversations. Mendes also criticized high-impact individual rulings during investigations, saying the episode illustrated institutional risks that could be limited by applying a judge-of-guarantees model at the Supreme Court.

Critics draw a narrower conclusion from the same vote. Four of the nine council members favored at least a preliminary inquiry, and prosecutor Ana Borges said there were sufficient elements, in principle, to investigate possible misconduct. A report on internal reaction said the result may have spared Gonet a formal inquiry without dispelling mistrust among part of the institution; allies, by contrast, regard the decision as closing the matter administratively.

Politicians and commentators on the right have focused on the distinction between the council’s jurisdiction and the underlying allegations. Novo lawmaker Adriana Ventura called the session “outrageous and corporatist,” while Senator Carlos Viana argued that the council was not the body empowered to remove the prosecutor-general. Another critical account stressed that the unanimous vote did not determine Gonet’s innocence or assess whether his relationship with Vorcaro created an impediment; council members instead concluded that such a question lay with the Supreme Court.

The competing accounts therefore agree on the formal result but differ sharply over its meaning: a vindication, in Mendes’s view, or a procedural reprieve that leaves broader questions of confidence and oversight unsettled.

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