Suspect of Moraes' wife's data leak asks minister to be removed from case

The information was published by the Metrópoles portal and confirmed to Folha de S.Paulo.

Conde's lawyers argued that Moraes could not be leading the process because among the alleged targets of the leak would be the minister's wife, lawyer Viviane Barci de Moraes.

Considered a fugitive from Brazilian justice, Marcelo Conde had his preventive arrest ordered by the Supreme Court in early April and was included in the so-called fake news investigation. He currently lives in Spain and says he is the target of a "truculent legal action" by Moraes.

The Internal Regulations of the Supreme Court establish that questions of impediment made by those involved in the process are directed to the president of the court for analysis of admissibility. If the case is admitted, the minister is heard and the case is forwarded to the plenary for analysis and judgment.

The minister himself can also declare himself prevented or suspected, as happened with Dias Toffoli in the case of Banco Master after his connections with Daniel Vorcaro's institution were revealed.

In the case of Conde's defense request, it is not yet clear who will analyze the request. This is because, as Folha showed, the then vice-president Alexandre de Moraes assumed this Friday (17) the presidency of the Supreme Court on a rotational basis with Edson Fachin.

During the Judiciary recess, which will end on July 31, it is also up to whoever holds the presidency to decide on issues considered urgent.

The report contacted the STF via WhatsApp message at around 5:50 pm and asked about the impeachment request presented. Until the publication of this report, no position was sent. It is common for the court not to comment on confidential processes, as is the case with the fake news investigation.

Marcelo Conde was named by accountant Washington Travassos de Azevedo as responsible for illegally ordering data from the minister's family members, such as Viviane. He would have provided a list of CPFs and paid, in cash, R$4,500 to "receive the tax declarations obtained illegally".

To PF, Azevedo also stated that he was an intermediary between a person interested in confidential tax data and another who claimed to know how to obtain them. Moraes' wife is one of the centers of the crisis at the STF after the disclosure of information about her contract with Master, which declared payments that extended to 2025 and reached R$80.2 million in two years to Barci de Moraes Sociedade de Advogados.

Conde released a statement at the end of April in which he spoke about the accusations. He denied being a fugitive and said that the "unreasonable" accusations do not correspond to reality. "I have never worked or participated in any organization aimed at obtaining confidential data," he said.

At the time, he stated that the magistrate acts in a truculent manner and "shuffles the roles of investigator, accuser, judge and offended party, in a confidential investigation regarding the alleged leak of his wife's tax data".

According to the Supreme Court, the PF investigation found the actions of public servants with functional access to data, security guards, dispatchers and intermediaries.

Data from 1,819 taxpayers would have been accessed, including people linked to ministers of the STF, the TCU (Federal Audit Court), federal deputies, former senators, former governors, heads of regulatory agencies, businesspeople, among others.

Conde is president of STX Desenvolvimento Imobiliário and the Rio Vamos Vencer association. He is the son of former Rio de Janeiro mayor Luiz Paulo Conde, who died in 2015.

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