The biggest beneficiary of the Car Wash leaks is Jair Bolsonaro

This text on the Car Wash leaks was re-published, with authorization, from the Harvard’s Global Anti-corruption Blog (GAB).

As most GAB readers are likely aware, one of the biggest stories in the anti-corruption world in the last couple of months has involved the disclosure of private text messages by Brazilian officials involved in the so-called Operation Car Wash. The investigation, which has been in progress for five years, is one of the largest anti-corruption operations ever, not just in Brazil but worldwide. The operation has secured the convictions of scores of high-level Brazilian political and business leaders once thought to be untouchable, including former President Lula of the Workers’ Party. 

Lula’s conviction rendered him ineligible to run in the 2018 presidential election—which he likely would have won—and this factor, many believe, helped far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro win the presidency. The prosecution of Lula, and a number of other Workers’ Party figures, triggered accusations, mainly from supporters of the party and others on the political left, that the Car Wash Operation was a politically motivated conspiracy against Lula and the Workers’ Party. That view had not been taken very seriously by Brazilian or international experts outside of a relatively small circle of left-wing activists, though when Judge Moro, who had presided over most of the Car Wash cases, including Lula’s, accepted a position in Bolsonaro’s cabinet, it certainly fed into that narrative.

Then, last month, The Intercept published a series of stories based on leaked/hacked/stolen private text messages among the prosecutors on the Car Wash Task Force, and between Task Force prosecutors and then-Judge Moro. According to The Intercept and others reporting on the revelations (dubbed “Vaza Jato” on social media), the disclosed texts corroborate the longstanding Workers’ Party narrative that the Car Wash prosecutors and Judge Moro were ideologically biased against the party, especially Lula, and that the former president was denied a fair trial as a result. 

The Intercept described its own reporting as “explosive,” and while one might quibble with the lack of humility (guys, it’s generally better form to let other people praise the importance of your work), the characterization is accurate.

Now, I think the evidence of misconduct is less clear than The Intercept and other commentators have suggested (see a useful debate on the legal and ethical issues here), and I find the claims of ideological bias especially flimsy (see here and here). But there’s no doubt that the revelations have tarnished Judge Moro’s reputation, and have also damaged the credibility of the Car Wash Task Force prosecutors (though unfairly and excessively so, in my view).

Who has benefited from these stories? The conventional wisdom seems to be that the Vaza Jato stories hurt not only Sergio Moro, but also the Bolsonaro administration—both because Moro is a senior figure in that administration, and because the Vaza Jato stories imply, or state outright, that Bolsonaro’s election was illegitimate due to the fact that the strongest alternative candidate was barred, on trumped-up charges, from running. 

And the biggest beneficiaries of the Vaza Jato stories, the conventional view maintains, are Brazil’s left-wing parties (the Workers’ Party and its allies), mainly because the Vaza Jato stories show (allegedly) that Workers’ Party activists were right all along when they claimed a right-wing conspiracy against Lula. That view is plausible, and seems widely shared (not least by The Intercept’s reporters and editors, who make no pretense of journalistic neutrality). But I think it’s wrong.

Indeed, I worry...