⚠️ This represents Lula’s second major defeat involving Jorge Messias, who became widely known in 2016 during the “Bessias” episode, when he was mentioned in a leaked phone call between Dilma Rousseff and Lula amid the Operation Lava Jato investigations.

➡️ In the conversation, Rousseff said she would send Lula his ministerial appointment document through Messias “for use if necessary,” which was interpreted by investigators as a possible attempt to grant Lula privileged jurisdiction and shield him from legal actions.

“By 42 votes to 34, the Senate made history and prevented the left and the PT from further capturing the State and the justice system. We can confidently say that Brazil has a future.”

“The more time passes, the more the farce that took place in this trial becomes evident. People were judged without jurisdictional privilege, having their lives decided solely by the First Chamber of the Supreme Court, without individualization of conduct, with indictments that were copy and paste, changing only the name and identification, a denial of defense never seen in the history of Brazil, and some people—hundreds of people and families—who had their lives destroyed by the special maneuvering of a Supreme Court justice.

Iraci Megumi Nagoshi, 73 years old, Mr. Messias. She participated in the vandalism here at Praça dos Três Poderes. At most, as you yourself said in another response, she would be liable for... property damage or material damage. Sentence: 14 years in prison for this elderly woman.

More recently, on Good Friday, Mr. Alcides Hahn, 71 years old, a businessman from Santa Catarina. Look at the charges he was convicted of, Mr. Messias: violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, qualified damage, deterioration of protected heritage, and armed criminal association. Do you know what he did? A 500 reais Pix transfer to charter a bus. Sentence: 14 years in prison.

And as mentioned here by Senator Magno, we have Késia here, this young woman dressed in black who is here personally attending this hearing—one of many she has taken part in—in memory of her family, of her father, Clezão, who died in prison after more than eight requests ignored by Mr. Alexandre de Moraes, despite favorable opinions from the Attorney General’s Office, so that he could be released and receive medical treatment.

And I would like to ask you a first question, in all sincerity: do you truly believe these people are a threat to democracy?

And here in Congress, senators and deputies, we have been fighting hard for the approval of a broad, general, and unrestricted amnesty. These people, ordinary people for the most part, Mr. Messias—workers, with no criminal record, with fixed residences—who were simply dissatisfied with the way the 2022 elections were conducted by Mr. Alexandre de Moraes as president of the TSE. Because in fact, he unbalanced that contest.”