By Mario Vitor Santos
Edson Fachin’s unilateral decision to strip Justice Alexandre de Moraes of his role overseeing inquiry 4781 (the “fake news” investigation) is a grave attack on democracy.
The move guts the main legal tool used to resist the ongoing coup actions against the rule of law pushed by Bolsonarismo and its allies in the mainstream media.
By removing Moraes from the inquiry, Fachin hands a victory to Jair Bolsonaro and the other convicted coup plotters. That includes those convicted of plotting to assassinate President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, and Moraes himself.
Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin, during a plenary session of the court, on September 16, 2026. (Alejandro Zambrana/STF)
After seven years of conflict, the enemies of democracy have finally pulled off their most successful coup yet. They got Moraes removed from the inquiry that was investigating efforts to discredit the judiciary, threaten judges during proceedings, and sabotage the reputations of judges and courts. The path is now clear.
In defending democracy, Moraes and his wife faced sanctions from the Trump administration. Fachin should have defended his colleague. He should have protected Brazilian judicial sovereignty under attack. Instead, he chose to align himself with the reviled president of the threatening foreign power. He did the work of weakening not just Moraes, but the judiciary itself. Fachin, the institutional guardian of the Supreme Court, has become an instrument of its destruction. This is how democracies die. Fachin belongs to them, as disgraced former Lava Jato task force leader Deltan Dallagnol once said.
The inquiry wasn’t kept open for seven years out of whim or authoritarianism. It stayed open because the coup, the reason for its existence, never stopped unfolding.
Leading the inquiry gave Moraes the means to fight back against formidable forces.
The case now passes into Fachin’s hands.
The Moraes who once had the power to enforce laws defending democracy no longer exists.
What exists now is a Moraes who has been sanctioned, neutered, humiliated by Fachin. The golden dreams of fascism’s beasts, held in check until now by the historic January 8th convictions, are becoming real.
Punishing Moraes is a reward for the enemies of freedom and their allies, who have tirelessly slandered him. The inquiry is being buried. But the coup actions meant to sabotage democracy, the very reason it existed, keep showing themselves to anyone willing to look. The poison remains. Only now, there’s no antidote.
The winners are the ones who always wanted Moraes’s head. Flavio Bolsonaro sees the one banner of his campaign against President Lula gaining ground. Gone is the main barrier standing against the coup’s return.
When the author falls, his work falls with him. The rulings Moraes led now face possible annulment. With his removal, impunity for Jair Bolsonaro grows more solid.
Truth alone isn’t enough to prevail. Truth needs force behind it. It needs support.
Fachin is not the angel of balance, republican morality, and sound judgment he wants people to believe he is. He himself deserved scrutiny in the now-buried fake news inquiry. Yesterday made plain what everyone already knew: Fachin belongs to them.
Mario Vitor Santos has been a journalist for 42 years. He served as director of Folha de São Paulo’s Brasília bureau during the 1988 Constituent Assembly. He then headed Folha's newsroom at the paper's headquarters in São Paulo, before moving on to become a Knight fellow for professional journalists at Stanford University. Upon his return, he served as Folha's ombudsman for two terms, and directed Casa do Saber from 2003 to 2021. He holds a master's degree in ancient drama and society from the University of Exeter in England and a doctorate in classical literature from the University of São Paulo. He is currently an editor at Brasil 247.
This article was originally published by Brazil 247. It can be read in its original Portuguese here.