The AGU (Attorney General's Office) called this Friday (4) the Federal Police's attempt to have the body file a lawsuit against Minister André Mendonça, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), a procedural intervention and stated that it had not identified any justification for the measure.
"The institution concluded that, in addition to the lack of legal competence to act in the criminal sphere under the requested terms, a procedural intervention under the intended conditions could generate legal and institutional risks for the ongoing investigations at the STF", he said, in a note.
The Union's attorney general, Jorge Messias, said, through the text, that there was no precedent in the measure requested by the PF. Therefore, AGU's denial was not inertia, but technical and legal analysis, states the note.
As Folha showed, members of the Federal Police leadership say they see the AGU's omission in the crisis that culminated in Mendonça's order to prepare a report that exposed exchanges of messages between Alexandre de Moraes and Daniel Vorcaro.
The body commanded by Messias, in turn, had already pointed out that the PF proposed measures with the potential to result in the annulment of investigations into Banco Master and INSS (National Social Security Institute) fraud. The conflict began when the PF began demanding that the AGU act before the Supreme Court to try to reduce Minister Dias Toffoli's control over the investigations for which he was rapporteur.
The AGU, responsible for legally representing the Union, has expressed its opposition to this type of demand.
In this Friday's note, Messias once again said he did not have legal authority to act on aspects related to criminal prosecution under the terms intended by the corporation. The AGU also reaffirmed the option of attempting conciliation between those involved.
"As an interlocutor before the STF, as provided for in article 35, IV, of law no. 14,600/2023, the Union's attorney general acted concretely in the search for an institutional solution, seeking to enable the questions presented by the Federal Police to be forwarded directly to the minister-rapporteur", he said.
Messias tried to articulate a consensual solution to the conflict and scheduled a meeting in August between Mendonça and the Minister of Justice, Wellington Lima e Silva. The general director of the PF, Andrei Rodrigues, was not at the meeting.
According to the note, throughout the months of July and August, authorities and representatives from the AGU, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security and the PF met several times to identify suitable mechanisms to meet the PF's demands.
MJSP interlocutors stated, with reservation, that the work was carried out on the case records that were made public and with the aim of observing whether Mendonça had gone beyond the limits of his role as a judge in the case. The analysis response was negative.
"As a result of legal duty and institutional commitment, the AGU will continue to seek, with responsibility and without random haste, peaceful and dialogued solutions to possible conflicts, contributing, within its constitutional and legal attributions, to the preservation of harmony between the Powers of the Republic", says the note.
Debates between the PF, AGU and the STF have been going on since the beginning of the year. In January, the corporation asked the AGU to call the Supreme Court to question Toffoli's decision to define the experts who would work on analyzing the evidence in the case.
At the time, the AGU argued that it was not its responsibility to deal with matters of criminal jurisdiction and that the Master case was not a government issue.
In February, Mendonça took on the Master case, in addition to the INSS, already in his office. Privately, he began to express suspicions about investigators.
Resistance to the conduct of investigations also occurred in measures such as restricting access by PF leadership to information from investigations as investigations progressed into Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, known as Lulinha, son of President Lula (PT).
