With some delay, Lula gets a win over Moro in Car Wash case

As The Brazilian Report editor-in-chief Gustavo Ribeiro told Time magazine, former judge and Justice Minister Sergio Moro was arguably the most influential Brazilian of the 2010s. He convicted one former president, and his actions from the bench helped to oust a sitting head of state. But pundits suggest his influence is waning. Mr. Moro is no longer a member of the presidential cabinet, after clashing with President Jair Bolsonaro over the autonomy of the Federal Police. And on Tuesday night, the Supreme Court reversed a key ruling of his tenure as judge: the inclusion of profoundly damaging testimony against former leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

A panel of three justices considered that Mr. Moro’s decision to attach the testimony of Lula’s former Finance Minister Antonio Palocci was biased and unfair. This ruling is crucial, as it weakens the case against the former president — just as the Supreme Court prepares to vote on whether Mr. Moro upheld the standards of the bench by being a neutral umpire in a case.

Mr. Moro, who became the figurehead of the Operation Car Wash anti-corruption investigation, published the content of Mr. Palocci’s plea bargain testimony on October 1, 2018 — a...