Lava Jato Symbol, Deltan Dallagnol Leaves Task Force Amid Doubts About Its Future

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In an announcement that took the legal community by surprise, Deltan Dallagnol, coordinator and the public face of the Lava Jato task force in Curitiba, disclosed on Tuesday, September 1st, that he is leaving the operation.

In a video, Dallagnol reports that he is leaving the task force to focus on “health issues within his family”. “A few weeks ago my wife and I found signs of concern in our little baby girl,” he said of his daughter. “It’s a decision I make as a father,” he said, recalling that Lava Jato “needs backup” from those who support the operation.

With the announced departure, Alessandro José Fernandes de Oliveira, the longest-serving prosecutor at the Paraná Prosecutor’s Office, will be put in charge of investigations into the Petrobras corruption scheme, according to the Office. Dallagnol is expected to leave the command of the operation within 15 days, the time set for the transition.

In the video, Dallagnol says it’s time to focus on his family. “We realized that she showed a set of signs of regression in her development,” he said, about his daughter. The prosecutor also said that he will continue working as a public prosecutor, but will no longer devote “overtime” and “weekends” to the operation’s investigations. He also used the three-minute video to leave a message: “If you support Lava Jato, continue to do so. The operation will continue to do its job, it will continue to be firm, but decisions that are and will be made in Brasília are affecting its work.”

Dallagnol is referring to the attack against the task force launched by Augusto Aras, the Federal Prosecutor General appointed by President Bolsonaro, which, according to the task force, is endangering the future of Lava Jato. Last month, Aras said it was necessary to “correct directions” so that “lava-jatism does not endure”.

Dallagnol’s message yesterday was pointed, given the decision Aras needs to make by September 10th. On that date, the PGR must either approve the renewal of the Lava Jato task forces, in Curitiba, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, or allow them to expire. The PGR is responsible for this annual renewal, and has already done so seven consecutive times. But now, this renewal is in check.

In addition to the tug-of-war with the PGR, Dallagnol’s image was worn down by the disclosures of the Vaza Jato series of leaks, published by The Intercept Brasil, which uncovered several messages exchanged between Lava Jato’s prosecutors and officials, among them ex-judge Sérgio Moro. The dialogues and the detection of communications between Moro and Dallagnol have challenged the judge’s impartiality.

The prosecutor was up against the wall earlier this year, with a disciplinary proceeding in the National Council of Public Prosecutors (CNMP). The case was opened to investigate whether or not the prosecutor had abused his power in the case widely known as Lula’s Power Point. Last week, after being adjourned 40 times, the hearing took place and the CNMP voted to dismiss the case. According to the Council, there would have been grounds for opening proceedings, and sanctions could have been applied, had they not been time barred.

Dallagnol still has two disciplinary proceedings against him pending in the Council. One of them is investigating whether he tried to interfere with the Senate presidency dispute through posts on his social media against Senator Renan Calheiros. The other concerns a motion for removal brought by Senator Kátia Abreu. In it, the senator argues that Dallagnol has already been the target of 16 disciplinary complaints in the Council, gave paid lectures, and signed an agreement with Petrobras for R$2.5 billion restored to be allocated to a Lava Jato foundation. Both proceedings are suspended and the first, regarding the election in the Senate, will expire on September 10th.

If at first Dallagnol and the task force’s eagerness to promote changes in power won widespread support among politicians, it later seemed to have lost its grip. The PT (Worker’s Party) debacle under Lava Jato’s denunciations was applauded by much of Congress, but then became a risk when the operations began to spread to members of other parties.

The PGR, in line with the Bolsonaro government, even tried to make available Lava Jato confidential data. In June, Aras sent the deputy prosecutor general Lindôra Araújo to Curitiba to retrieve all the files in the task force’s database. The Prosecutor General even said that there was “a box of secrets” in Curitiba with data on over 38,000 people. It was a heavy blow – the Paraná Prosecutor reacted by refusing to send the data and criticizing the attitude. The dispute ended up in the Supreme Court (STF), which ruled, through Justice Edson Fachin, the rapporteur in Lava Jato cases, that the data should remain where they were.

Following the example of Sergio Moro, who left the judiciary and risked his political life by joining the Bolsonaro government, Dallagnol himself may have considered a political candidacy, according to Vaza Jato reports. However, his justification of the reasons why he is pulling out of the operation now is compelling enough to explain why he would rather stay away from the toxic environment in which politics and justice currently find themselves.

Source: El País

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