Do you know why reputable news organizations were unimpressed by those "revelations"? Because they mostly show prosecutors being angry on IRC. What it proves is

Do you know why reputable news organizations were unimpressed by those "revelations"? Because they mostly show prosecutors being angry on IRC. What it proves is that the prosecutors hated the Workers' Party, which is understandable, given that they had spent the last several years dealing with massive corruption in the Workers' Party. I would classify that emotional reaction as normal. Their comments about the election are somewhat inappropriate, but there is no indication of any ill intent. The collaboration of the prosecutors with Moro, however minor, is more serious. That doesn't mean the charges were faked -- the evidence is publicly available and has been considered by many independent parties. Nobody qualified was arguing that this was a sham before June. However, judicial procedure exists for a reason. If back-channel discussions could have influenced Moro's decision, then it could be reversed even if the evidence is nonetheless sufficient to prove Lula's guilt. (I am not a lawyer.) It's not exactly out of the ordinary for prosecutors to be friendly with judges, who are themselves often former prosecutors, and it isn't evidence of any foreign influence. What they did do w.r.t. the election was say they wished they could file an injunction to prevent Lula from speaking publicly, but they were legally barred from doing so. Instead, the Bolsonaro campaign filed the motion and it was granted. It's unclear how much this would have influenced the election, which Bolsonaro won by just over 10%. That's a landslide in the United States. Furthermore, the American role in Lava Jato was never secret nor nefarious, and was well-known to independent institutions, e.g.: https://www.law.columbia.edu/public-integrity/conferences-and-events/Brazil-Justice https://www.law.columbia.edu/public-integrity/conferences-an... https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/b49a8c69/lagunes-lavajato-backgrounder.pdf https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/b49a8c69/la... Furthermore, this kind of paranoid ranting about "lawfare" is exactly what Brazil does not need right now: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/12/brazils-democracy-suffers-another-blow-with-operation-car-wash-leaks/?utm_term=.31d691cfecb9 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/12/brazils-d... >Widespread distrust of institutions will feed the “salvationist” narrative taking hold in Brazilian politics. Bolsonaro is a direct product of that — and he won before these recent revelations about Lava Jato. Liberal and conservative institutions alike in the West mourned the election of Bolsonaro. The West is not always the most honest actor but it is difficult to manage how it could manage to be so uniformly opposed to something in public and favor it in private. Right-wing economists in Brazil who supported his campaign have expressed regret. https://reason.com/2019/06/01/deal-with-the-devil/ https://reason.com/2019/06/01/deal-with-the-devil/ >Some of Ling's closest associates had pleaded with him not to sit down with Bolsonaro, who was infamous for public comments praising torture and dictatorship and denigrating women and minorities. Just associating with him, they feared, would tarnish Brazil's libertarian movement, which was drawing new followers at an astounding pace and winning mainstream recognition. This isn't an organized coup. It's a product of various special interests poking and prodding from within and without on a democracy, like every other country but with a lot of inequality and a culture of doing whatever it takes to get ahead. Painting a picture that colors in the lines drawn for you by Russian propagandists isn't going to clarify anything. It might make you feel like a hero, of course, but you won't be one.