Foreign Policy: Brian Winter on Brazil's Car Wash Probe

Americas Quarterly Editor-in-Chief Brian Winter spoke with Foreign Policy’s First Person podcast about recent publications around the Car Wash operation in Brazil. Throughout June, The Intercept published articles containing leaked messages between then-federal Judge Sérgio Moro and other key figures, such as prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, in the anti-corruption investigation.

“If you look at the range of politicians and people who were sent to jail, from a variety of political parties, it is impossible to argue that Car Wash was exclusively out to get the Worker’s Party,” said Winter on Lava Jato’s track record. He also commented on the case involving ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, saying, “The question of whether they were extra aggressive or whether they bent or broke laws of judicial procedure in order to sentence Lula...has been a doubt that has lingered in the minds of people for years.”

On the recent publications by The Intercept, Winter said, “What I do think we’ve seen with the revelation of these transcripts is that these guys, for reasons of prosecutorial logic, were bending the rules and doing things that they should not have been doing because they were in pursuit of a guy who they believed was the figure head of a criminal organization.”