The corrupt Brazilian prosecutors who locked up Lula now want to release him, to make him less sympathetic

In 2017, Brazil's "anti-corruption task force" secured a conviction against the incredibly popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who had enacted a series of reforms that addressed the country's longstanding issues of corruption, racial discrimination and inequality.

The task force, and its "Operation Car Wash," locked up many prominent Brazilians, including some of the nation's untouchable oligarchs, as well as Lula's anointed protege Dilma Rouseff and her pro-austerity, pro-billionaire successor, Michael Temer.

But two years later -- after the election of the far-right, murderous, ecocidal, racist, homophobic, misogynist, ultraviolent authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro -- the prosecutors behind Operation Car Wash were revealed by The Intercept to have secretly conspired with Sergio Moro, the world-famous judge who presided over the Lula case, to secure the conviction. Moro was subsequently elevated to a newly created position in Bolsonaro's regime, with oversight of both the police and the judiciary, but the revelations led to a collapse in public confidence in Moro from all quarters, including the more honorable elements in the country's pro-business lobby, who looked into their hearts and found that the rule of law was more important to them than sweetheart tax deals and the erosion of labor and environmental protections.

Since then, the judiciary, the Brazilian establishment, and Brazilians themselves have made life increasingly difficult for Bolsonaro, Moro, and those who want to see Lula -- and his climate-friendly, racially inclusive, anti-oligarchic policies -- kept out of Brazilian politics.

Two weeks ago, Brazil's Supreme Court nullified one of Moro's most celebrated "anti-corruption" convictions, citing the kind of corrupt conduct revealed in The Intercept's reporting. Read the rest