Alexandre de Moraes's office in the STF (Supreme Federal Court) ordered, via messages and unofficially, the production of reports by the Electoral Justice to support the minister’s own decisions against Bolsonaro supporters in the fake news investigation at the STF during and after the 2022 elections.
Dialogues to which the report had access show how the misinformation combat sector of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), then headed by Moraes, was used as an investigative arm of the minister's office in the Supreme Court.
The messages reveal a procedure outside the protocol involving both courts, with the misinformation combat body of the TSE being used to investigate and supply a case from another court, the STF, on matters related or not to that year's election.
Folha accessed more than six gigabytes of messages and files exchanged via WhatsApp by Moraes’s aides, including his main advisor at the STF, who still holds the position of instructor judge (a kind of assistant to Moraes in the office), and other members of his team at the TSE and the Supreme Court.
At certain points in the conversations, aides reported Moraes’s irritation with delays in following his orders. "Do you want me to do the report?" says one of the justice’s quoted statements. "He became obsessed. When he gets obsessed, it’s a tragedy," commented one of the aides. "He’s angry now," said another.
The largest volume of informal requests— all via WhatsApp— involved the instructor judge Airton Vieira, Moraes’s closest aide at the STF, and Eduardo Tagliaferro, a criminal expert who at that time headed the AEED (Special Advisory for Combating Misinformation) of the TSE.
In a statement from his office sent by the STF press office, Moraes claimed that all procedures he adopted were "official and regular" and are "properly documented in the investigations and ongoing in the STF, with full participation from the Attorney General’s Office."
Vieira did not respond to the report’s contact, and Tagliaferro stated he would not comment, but that "I followed all the orders given to me and do not recall committing any illegality."
The messages show that Vieira informally requested specific reports from the TSE employee via WhatsApp against allies of Jair Bolsonaro (PL). These documents were sent from the Electoral Justice to the fake news investigation at the STF.
In none of the cases Folha had access to was there official information that these reports had been produced at the request of the justice or his office at the STF. In some, it appeared that the report was "by order" of the TSE auxiliary judge. In others, an anonymous complaint.
The messages cover the period from August 2022, already during the electoral campaign, to May 2023.
Folha obtained the material from sources who had access to data from a phone containing the messages, not from illegal interception or hacker access.
The set of dialogues shows at least two dozen cases in which Moraes’s office at the STF unofficially requested the production of reports by the TSE.
At least some of these documents were used by the justice to support criminal measures against Bolsonaro supporters, such as passport cancellations, social media blocks, and summons for testimony to the Federal Police.
The controversial fake news investigation, opened in March 2019, became one of the most contentious cases in the Supreme Court, having been used by Moraes in recent years to make decisions on his own (without provocation), without the participation of the Public Prosecutor’s Office or the Federal Police.
Two requests for monitoring and report production on posts by journalist Rodrigo Constantino, a Bolsonaro supporter, show how the dynamics worked.
One occurred on December 28, 2022, four days before Lula’s inauguration, when, theoretically, there was no longer a reason for the TSE to act.
The auxiliary judge of Moraes’s office at the STF asks Tagliaferro from the TSE if he can talk. "Yes, I can, is this by any chance [the case] of Constantino?"
After this audio, the two start a conversation about a request from Moraes to make reports based on posts by Constantino and also Bolsonaro supporter Paulo Figueiredo, former Jovem Pan presenter and grandson of former president João Batista Figueiredo, the last from the military dictatorship.
At that time, both were targeted by Moraes because they echoed attacks on the integrity of the election and STF justices on their social media, in addition to inciting the military against the election results.
After Tagliaferro (TSE) sent a first version of the report on Constantino, Airton Vieira (STF) sends screenshots of the journalist’s posts and demands changes to the document to include more statements.
The messages make it clear that the request for the report came from Moraes himself.
"Who sent this exactly now was the justice and sent saying: do you want me to make the report? That’s how he is, he gets obsessed with this. Since he doesn’t have sessions these days, he has time to look for things," says Airton Vieira in an audio sent to Tagliaferro at 11:59 PM that day.
"It’s better to add [the posts], change it once more, then you satisfy his excellency," Vieira concludes.
The TSE advisor then responds, already in the early hours of December 29, and states that the content of the previously sent report would already be sufficient but that he would change the document and include the posts indicated by Moraes through the instructor judge.
"I agree with you, Eduardo [Tagliaferro]. If you keep searching [posts], you will find, obviously. But as you said, what we already have is sufficient. But it doesn’t matter, he [Moraes] became obsessed. When he gets obsessed, it’s a tragedy," replies judge Airton Vieira.
Days after this conversation, on January 1, 2023, Airton Vieira sends Tagliaferro copies of two confidential decisions by Moraes taken within the fake news investigation based on the report supposedly sent spontaneously.
"It is an official letter sent by the Special Advisory on Misinformation Intelligence Unit of the Superior Electoral Court," begins the decision, without mentioning that the material had been requested in his name by the aide in a WhatsApp conversation.
Among the Constantino posts that came under scrutiny were two: "What was going through Gilmar Mendes’s mind at the impunity party yesterday, celebrating Lula’s appointment by the system? Will he be the first here to get a habeas corpus?" And the other, "It’s the first time in organized crime history that the victims watch in real time, (sic) the gang preparing to rob them, they know the criminals, and cannot do anything because the justice they could turn to is part of the gang."
In the decisions, Moraes orders the breach of Constantino’s and Figueiredo’s bank secrecy, as well as the cancellation of their passports, blocking of their social media, and summons for them to be heard by the Federal Police.
About a month earlier, on November 22, 2022, another request from Moraes regarding Constantino shows the justice himself making the requests that reached the misinformation combat body of the TSE.
On that day, at 10:49 PM, Airton Vieira sends a screenshot of a conversation with Moraes in a WhatsApp group called Investigations.
The message shows the justice sending Constantino’s posts, one of them questioning why Bolsonaro’s party, the PL, had not made a challenge to the TSE— it’s not clear what topic.
"Ask Eduardo to analyze the messages from this [Constantino] to see if we can block and foresee a fine," says Moraes’s message, whose screenshots were sent to Eduardo Tagliaferro. "I’ve received it" and "It’s for removal," replies the TSE advisor in two messages.
After asking Tagliaferro to produce a report "as usual," Airton Vieira and the TSE advisor discuss whether the decisions would be by the STF or the TSE.
At first, Airton Vieira says that the block would be imposed by the TSE and the fine by the STF. Within minutes, however, he informs that everything will be by the STF and asks Tagliaferro to do a thorough job.
"Eduardo, block and fine by the STF (Rodrigo Constantino). Do a thorough report, please. Haha. Then, with the letter, via email. Thank you," he states.
Already in the early hours of the 23rd, at 1:06 AM, Tagliaferro sends the report attributing the information received from partners in the misinformation combat sector.
"Through our alert system and monitoring carried out by partners of this Court, we received information of frequent posts made by the profile @Rconstantino, this one used on the Twitter platform, which reports there are several offensive posts against institutions, Supreme Federal Court, and Superior Electoral Court," says the document.
In another conversation, on December 4, 2022, Moraes’s own aides express concern about the unconventional method being used.
At 12 PM that day, Marco Antônio Vargas, Moraes’s auxiliary judge at the TSE, asks Tagliaferro: "Is Dr. Airton sending you things privately?"
After the head of the misinformation combat body responds that yes, the TSE judge makes a joke about the possibility of the model leading to the nullity of the evidence. "Evidence failure. I will contest," he said.
Tagliaferro then expresses his apprehension about the model of sending reports via the TSE at the request of Airton Vieira. ""If he keeps sending me stuff like this, I will ask for a meeting with the president," says Tagliaferro. Then, it goes on to suggest a possible way to "alleviate this."
"Even if you create an email to send us a complaint."
Moraes' actions as head of the TSE and in the STF inquiries have drawn both criticism and praise over time. One of the most tense periods for the minister occurred recently, in April, when Elon Musk began to challenge the decisions of the Brazilian magistrate.
In this context, a U.S. Congressional committee published a series of confidential decisions by Moraes regarding the suspension or removal of profiles on social media.
Based on this material, Folha revealed in that same month of April that the TSE's misinformation combat body had helped to bolster STF inquiries. What was not known, however, was that the group produced these reports at the request of Moraes' own office, which is now possible to know based on the messages.
The fake news inquiry was opened in March 2019, in the first months of Bolsonaro's government, by order of Minister Dias Toffoli, who appointed Moraes as rapporteur.
The objective, as announced by the STF at the time, was "to investigate facts and infractions related to fraudulent news (fake news) and threats disseminated on the internet that target the Court, its ministers, and their families."
From the beginning, when it censored the magazine Crusoé, the inquiry has been the subject of criticism by jurists, but it was deemed constitutional by the STF plenary in June 2020.
The Attorney General's Office (PGR), still under Raquel Dodge, requested the case's dismissal more than once. Under Augusto Aras's management, the Prosecutor's Office defended its participation in the inquiry, which should only target facts related to ensuring the security of the court's members.