Senator Renan Calheiros, former president of the upper house, described the Operation Lava Jato judge turned presidential hopeful as ‘a first-generation robot, with no ability to learn’…
Carta Capital reports that senior Senator Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL), former president of the upper house, who more recently held the post of rapporteur to the Congressional Covid inquiry, has attacked presidential pre-candidate Sergio Moro.
Calheiros dismissed Moro as “a first-generation robot with no ability to learn.”
“It was created for Lava Jato and has not been adapted for any new function. Furthermore, it has no feeling or emotion, it is hollow. Any day now it will be deactivated by its owners in the USA because it became useless”, the Senator added.
Calheiros was referring to Moro’s well documented and extensive connections to U.S. government, intelligence, and corporate power, which are alleged to have been principal motivators behind his lawfare campaign against Lula and the Workers Party, which helped see president Dilma Rousseff removed from office, and prevent her predecessor Lula from returning to the presidency.
Hours earlier, former President Lula, in a collective interview with journalists from independent websites in Brasília, spoke of Operation Car Wash, and specifically Sergio Moro, the man responsible for the politically motivated judgement which saw the him jailed and eliminated from the 2018 election race he was on course to win.
“I was lucky that the Brazilian people helped me prove the farce mounted against me. I managed to dismantle the scoundrel Moro in the judgment of my cases… Dallagnol , the lie, the fake news, the gang’s PowerPoint. I managed to prove what a gang they were”, the former president remarked.
Minutes after the interview, Moro responded on social media: “The scoundrel is the one who stole from the Brazilian people for years and who used our money to finance dictatorships. And gang is the name of the group that did that, put there by you, Lula, in Petrobras. You will be defeated. It only offends you because there is no way to explain the corruption in your government”.
Despite once enjoying high popularity, prior to Operation Lava Jato’s spectacular fall from grace, and a degree of legacy name recognition stemming from the PR campaign that surrounded it, Moro has fared poorly since announcing his Podemos party ticket presidential bid in November. Moro’s exit from the Bolsonaro government in 2020 meant his rumoured ambition for a place on the Supreme Court came to nothing, and he is disliked by Bolsonaro supporters, with among the highest rejection rate of any candidate.
Presented as a “third way” candidate, and more acceptable face for continuation of Bolsonaro government policy, Moro currently trails Lula by 35% here have been reports that Moro will abandon his presidential candidacy if his polling has not reached 15% by March, and may possibly instead attempt a run for Senate, Congress, or abandon Brazil altogether for the United States.
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