Corruption Scandal in Brazil

Brazil drowning in corruption

Exactly one month before Brazil holds its presidential election, the country is drowning in a corruption scandal and institutional civil war, the gravity of which is impossible to overstate.

Alexandre de Moraes spent months denying corrupt profits from a collapsed bank. The proof is now overwhelming, and his desperate moves to survive may imperil Lula’s re-election and Brazil’s democracy.

At the center of it is Brazil’s authoritarian and increasingly unhinged Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who was sanctioned by the U.S. as a human rights abuser in 2025 after he banned X from Brazil for one month over its refusal to censor at his behest, then ordered money removed from Starlink’s accounts to pay for X’s fines.

While polls all year have shown that the incumbent left-wing president, 80-year-old Lula da Silva, has a modest lead to win his fourth term, more recent polls have shown him tied with his primary adversary, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, now imprisoned for 28 years by Judge Moraes on charges of plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election to Lula. [GLENN GREENWALD]

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