Banco Master Is Not the Whole Story
By Hotspotnews
A seven-year secret inquiry cannot remain a sealed instrument of power inside the highest court. Minister André Mendonça’s request to President Edson Fachin for full access to Inquérito 4.781, the so-called Inquérito das Fake News, is a basic demand of due process and institutional self-correction. A justice who was inserted into that file, then accused on the basis of intelligence reports later described as lacking evidentiary value, has the right to examine the entire record rather than a selected fragment. That is not politics. That is the minimum standard of a court that claims to judge others.
The immediate facts are straightforward. After Mendonça lifted secrecy on messages involving Alexandre de Moraes and banker Daniel Vorcaro in the Banco Master matter, Moraes used the Fake News inquiry to accuse his colleague of irregularities in the Master and INSS-related investigations. Fachin later removed Moraes from the rapporteurship of Inq 4.781 and moved the accusation against Mendonça into a separate proceeding under the presidency. Mendonça answered with a detailed filing: he asked for summary dismissal of the representation against him, an inquiry into the origin and authorship of the Federal Police reports used against him, examination of possible abuse of authority and calumnious accusation, and complete access to the Fake News file so he can see whether other references to him exist. He has described the long-running inquiry as an “interminable investigation” and spoken of “institutional arapongagem” and a dossier assembled for intimidation. Those characterizations belong to his filing and to contemporaneous reporting in Estadão, O Globo, VEJA, JOTA, Gazeta do Povo, and Revista Oeste.
The importance is larger than the clash between two ministers. For years the Fake News inquiry operated in secrecy, with broad powers over speech, platforms, and political actors. When one justice of the same court cannot even read the full file in which he was named, the public is entitled to ask what else the record contains and whether the inquiry stayed within legal bounds. Banco Master is a serious banking and political scandal. It is not, by itself, a reason to keep a seven-year secret proceeding closed to a sitting justice who has been targeted inside it.
Possible consequences follow from Fachin’s choice. If he grants full access, the Court takes a step toward internal accountability and the country may finally see how that inquiry was actually used. If he denies it, the appearance of one set of rules for some ministers and another for others will deepen. Either path will affect public confidence in the Supreme Court, the handling of related criminal matters, and the claim that Brazil still operates under the rule of law rather than under sealed dockets. Transparency is not optional when the tribunal itself is the subject.
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Sources: Estadão, O Globo, VEJA, JOTA, Gazeta do Povo, Revista Oeste (reporting 22 September 2026).