The plenary of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) decided today (30), in Brasilia, to close three processes that investigated the use of illicit funds diverted from Petrobras in the 2014 election campaigns, involving the PT, PMDB and PP parties. The cases were related to revelations of slush funds (undeclared funds) from Operation Lava Jato.
The three representations had been opened in 2016, at the initiative of the then electoral inspector-general, Minister Maria Thereza de Assis Moura. She decided to open the processes after receiving a large volume of documents forwarded by former judge Sergio Moro, then responsible for Lava Jato at the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba.
“I note, in this preliminary analysis of the documentation, evidence of illegal practices by both the Workers’ Party (PT), the Progressive Party (PP) and the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB),” she wrote at the time.
Gravity of the accusations
In the same order, she had decided to distribute – by lot – the cases to other rapporteurs in the TSE, understanding that they should not be the responsibility of the internal affairs department alone, given the size and gravity of the accusations.
The cases were stopped for almost a year while the TSE plenary decided whether there should be free distribution or not. In the end, the representations ended up being distributed to the rapporteurs of Minister Rosa Weber and Minister Luiz Fux.
Still in 2020, the rapporteurs voted to archive the processes. Then, the magistrate Luís Felipe Salomão, who succeeded Maria Thereza de Assis Moura, asked for a view (more time for analysis) of the processes, which have been stopped since then.
This Thursday, the current electoral general inspector, Benedito Gonçalves, returned the views and decided to accompany the votes by filing. “There is not the slightest supporting evidence to be able to proceed with the investigation,” he said. The other ministers did the same. With this, the representations will be archived even before they become electoral judicial investigation actions (Aije’s).
