Senate hearing tests competing accounts of Master case report changes

Senate hearing tests competing accounts of Master case report changes
Senate security and justice committees have approved a joint hearing with Justice Minister Wellington César Lima e Silva and Federal Police Director-General Andrei Rodrigues over rewritten reports in the Banco Master case and the removal of two delegates from leadership roles. The session is scheduled for November 18; delegates Daniel Mostardeiro Cola and Wedson Cajé Lopes, along with the head of their professional association, were also invited.

Senator Alessandro Vieira, who sought the hearing, frames the episode as a question of transparency rather than a settled finding of misconduct. He said reports referring to Supreme Federal Court justices Alexandre de Moraes, Dias Toffoli and Kassio Nunes Marques were filed on November 3, ordered to be redrafted the following day, and followed by the delegates’ removal on November 5. “The sequence of acts does not, by itself, prove irregularity,” Vieira said, but added that the way they occurred and the conflicting explanations had undermined public confidence.

The Federal Police offers a different account. Its leadership concluded that the initial material went beyond the descriptive survey requested by Supreme Court President Edson Fachin and omitted references to other justices. The force says changes in command positions are internal management decisions and that the teams handling the underlying investigations have not changed.

The delegates’ position, as presented in Vieira’s requests, is that police leadership had instructed them to select facts with possible criminal implications. That conflicts with the leadership’s account of the reports’ intended scope. The Senate hearing is expected to examine whether the original reports will be preserved and sent to the court, and what the Justice Ministry knew about the decisions.

The Association of Federal Police Delegates has criticized the removals and advocated a fixed term for the Federal Police director-general, arguing that the model could reduce pressure in sensitive inquiries. Vieira says the appearance of the delegates and the association should help identify measures to protect investigative independence; the police, meanwhile, maintains that the inquiry teams themselves remain intact.

https://brazil-test-hub.syndichain.com Brazil News Hub brazil-test-hub brazil-test-hub