The Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Alexandre de Moraes, clarified today (3) that Senator Marcos do Val sought him out to reveal the existence of an alleged plan to embarrass the minister and, thus, prevent him from moving forward of investigations that investigate the dissemination of false news (fake news) and attacks on ministers of the Court.
“Like countless parliamentarians, he [do Val] requested a hearing. I received him in the white room and what he told me was that deputy Daniel Silveira had sought him out and he had [então] attended a meeting with the [ex-]President [Jair Bolsonaro]”, said Moraes when participating, by video, in an event held by Lide, in Lisbon.
According to the minister, do Val said that Silveira and other people close to Bolsonaro planned to delegate to someone Moraes trusted the mission of recording a conversation with the minister, trying to obtain something compromising. The senator of Val would be this person, although Moraes guarantees that the two are not close, having only been together on three occasions.
“The genius idea they had was to put a bug on the senator [do Val] so that he, who has no intimacy with me, would record me so that, with that, they could request my removal from the presidency of the inquiries”, added Moraes.
“I asked the senator if he would reaffirm that and put it on paper [pois, desta forma] I would take your statement immediately. He told me that unfortunately he could not confirm [o relato oficialmente]. So I got up, said goodbye and thanked the senator for coming. Because, for me, what is not official does not exist”, continued the minister.
Despite the initial refusal, the senator ended up revealing the story to Veja magazine – which turned it into the cover story of the edition that circulates as of today. Before the magazine hit the newsstands, do Val spoke about the subject in a live broadcast, on his Instagram profile. During the livehe even announced that he planned to leave party politics.
Faced with the repercussions of do Val’s statements, Minister Alexandre de Moraes himself ordered the Federal Police to take his statement – which was done yesterday (2). Today, Moraes said that “everything is still being investigated”, but ridiculed the alleged plan to embarrass him.
“This attempt at a tabajara operation shows exactly how ridiculous we have come in the attempt of a coup”, commented the minister.
Red card
Present at the event, former Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade in the Lula government, Luiz Fernando Furlan, asked Moraes about how public authorities responsible for making sometimes unpopular decisions deal with public recognition and the consequent risk of being victims of aggressions. Furlan mentioned that Moraes is, today, better known in Brazil than many soccer players, to which the minister countered by saying he earns “much less” than the athletes”.
– But nobody can give you a red card, Minister, joked Furlan.
– They tried to give me a red card, but the VAR did not allow it, Moraes reacted, referring to the video assistant used to check penalties in football.
Also during the event, the minister commented that the financiers of the dissemination of false information and attacks on the Three Powers that culminated in the invasion and depredation of the Planalto Palace, the National Congress and the headquarters of the SFT, on January 8, are being identified. According to Moraes, many of these people act “not only for ideology, for political taste, but for economic reasons, since they end up being economically favored”.
Regulation
The minister also once again defended the regulation of social media, explaining that, although the subject is controversial and there is still no global example to be followed in this regard, the main objective, to be seen, is to equate the activity of responsible technology companies by social networks to that of traditional media companies.
“What is being defended is exactly that social media are no longer considered technology companies, and are now held responsible for what they publish. That these companies start to have the same responsibility as media companies that earn and collect with publicity”, defends the minister. would allow it, but whoever has the courage to publish hate speeches, anti-democratic, personal offenses, must have the courage to take responsibility. The binomial freedom with responsibility applies to traditional, television and written media and, in my view, should also apply to social media”, defended Moraes.
