Alexandre de Moraes
Alexandre de Moraes is a Brazilian jurist, former politician, former president of the Superior Electoral Court, and current justice of the Supreme Federal Court. Moraes was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Michel Temer in 2017 when serving as Minister of Justice and Public Security. Previously, Moraes had acted as Secretary for Public Security in the state of São Paulo and had been a member of the Brazilian Public Prosecutor's Office.
From around 2020, Moraes has generated wide public attention in Brazil and abroad for ordering several arrests, search warrants, and terminations of social media accounts of individuals and groups involved or suspected to be involved in planning coups and propagating fake news, in addition to brief nationwide blocks of widely used platforms that had failed to comply with Brazilian court orders, such as Telegram and Twitter, until their regularization under Brazilian law. He has been a widely controversial figure since, gathering a great number of both supporters and opponents. While critics say his measures are authoritarian, abusive, unconstitutional, and partisan, to supporters they are legal, albeit stern, and have been necessary to maintain Brazil's democratic rule, preventing coups and the rise of extremism. Among Moraes's supporters is the current president of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and among his critics is the former president Jair Bolsonaro, American president Donald Trump, and Elon Musk.
Moraes's tenure as president of Brazil's Superior Electoral Court and certain actions he took during the 2022 Brazilian general election have made him the target of criticism, including conspiracy theories, by Bolsonaro and his supporters. After the 2023 Brazilian Congress attack, Moraes ordered several controversial judicial actions, being criticized for combining investigative and judicial functions against the coup planners, authorizing preventive detentions, content removal and blocking of profiles on social networks, generating debates about impartiality, legality and raising concerns about freedom of speech and the limits of judicial power. Moraes classified the coup planners as terrorists, which provoked protests from right-wing Congress members, while other political groups from center and left-wing parties, and majority of Brazilians, supports and praises his actions as democratic and accurate following the threats brought by Bolsonaro and his supporters.
In July 2025, the US State Department imposed an entry ban on Moraes and other Supreme Court justices, alleging "political persecution against Jair Bolsonaro" and violations of the basic rights of Brazilians and Americans. Later that month, the US Treasury Department imposed economic sanctions under the Magnitsky Act on Moraes, although he has no accounts, investments or assets in the United States. This measure was widely criticized as Trump's interference in Brazilian national sovereignty and its separation of powers; among those who criticized the application of the Magnitsky Act against Moraes were Bill Browder, the leader of the campaign for its passage, Transparency International, which warned of the risk of institutional instability in Brazil, the non-governmental organization Human Rights First, and the British magazine The Economist. Moraes said he would ignore the Magnitsky procedure and that he would remain the rapporteur of the criminal case regarding the coup d'état attempt in Brazil. On December 12, the Trump administration backed down and removed Moraes and his wife from the Magnitsky's list. That same year, the Financial Times included Moraes in its list of the 25 most influential people in the world, in the "Heroes" category.
Early life
Alexandre de Moraes studied at the Law School of the University of São Paulo, graduating in 1990. Moraes is an associate professor of the Law School. He received a doctorate in State Law from the same university under the supervision of professor Dalmo Dallari, with a thesis on constitutional jurisdiction.Career
Moraes was a member of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party. In 2002, he was appointed Secretary of Public Security of the State of São Paulo. His management was controversial: he was accused of covering up police violence. One out of every four homicides in the city of São Paulo was committed by the police. In addition, Moraes sent armoured vehicles to suppress left-wing demonstrations.At the beginning of 2016, he was called upon by Michel Temer. The latter was living under the threat of a hacker who had hacked into the cell phone of his wife, Marcela Temer, and demanded 300,000 reais under penalty of releasing compromising information and photos. Alexandre de Moraes quickly mobilized his police force, assembled a team of 33 investigators and arrested the blackmailer.
Moraes assumed office on 22 March 2017. As minister, he claims to defend a policy of "zero tolerance". He denounced the alleged "criminal attitudes" of leftist movements and justified police violence. He was at the centre of another controversy when the Brazilian newspaper Estadão published an investigation claiming that he had intervened to defend the Transcooper cooperative, suspected of being linked to Brazil's main drug trafficking group, the First Command of the Capital, which he denied.
On 10 June 2020, Moraes – in response to a legal challenge from three political parties – said the health ministry must "fully re-establish the daily divulgation of epidemiological data on the Covid-19 pandemic", including on its website: "Mr Moraes gave President Jair Bolsonaro's government 48 hours to release the full figures again."
On 16 August 2022, Moraes was elected as the presiding justice of the Superior Electoral Court in a public ceremony with 2,000 guests at the court auditorium. The justice Ricardo Lewandowski took place as his vice-president on duty.
2020 Brazil judiciary fake news inquiry
In April 2019, Supreme Federal Court president Dias Toffoli, a former legal representative for the Workers' Party in the presidential campaigns of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 1998, 2002 and 2006, launched an inquiry to investigate personal attacks and statements against court members. Moraes was chosen as its rapporteur. That month, Crusoé magazine reported that a document from Operation Car Wash revealed that then-Solicitor General Toffoli was also involved in the Odebrecht scandal, according to the company's former chairman Marcelo Odebrecht. On 15 April, Moraes ordered that Crusoé take down the article from their website. Toffoli himself later requested a probe into whether Crusoé illegally leaked the document. The Court's decision on the matter was criticized by outlets such as The Intercept on the basis of censorship and attack on the freedom of the press. On 27 May 2020, as part of that same inquiry, the Federal Police launched an operation probing businessmen, bloggers and politicians allied to President Jair Bolsonaro.On 19 March 2022, Moraes ordered the suspension of the messaging app Telegram, accusing it of repeatedly failing to block accounts spreading disinformation, and ignoring previous court decisions. President Bolsonaro called the ruling "inadmissible", while Telegram founder Pavel Durov blamed the company's failings on email issues, pledging to do a better job.
In October 2022, the Superior Electoral Court gave Moraes the unilateral authority to order the removal of online content that did not comply with previous TSE rulings, as part of an effort to combat disinformation. Bolsonaro supporters and legal experts criticized the move, fearing that it could allow for censorship. Moraes cited the proliferation of false information and hate speech when initially proposing the move to the Superior Electoral Court.
On 30 October 2022, during the second round of the presidential election between Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva, hundreds of roadblocks set up by the Federal Highway Police, under orders from the government, prevented voters from going to the polls in Northeastern Brazil. Moraes summoned the director of the PRF, Silvinei Vasques, and threatened him with imprisonment if he did not lift the blockades.
8 January 2023 attacks in Brasília
Shortly after the 8 January 2023 attacks in Brasília, Moraes ordered the arrest of the former commander of the Military Police of the Federal District, Fabio Augusto Vieira, the former secretary of Public Security of the Federal District and former Justice Minister, Anderson Torres, and enacted a federal interference for the removal of the Governor of the Federal District Ibaneis Rocha.Criticism
Several right-wing and far-right politicians, members of the private sector, supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro and the right-wing media accused Moraes of practicing nepotism, political interference, political repression, abuse of power and deploying a constitutional dictatorship. American journalist and lawyer Glenn Greenwald has criticized several decisions of Moraes, accusing him of censorship and undermining freedom of speech.Twitter owner Elon Musk, responding to Greenwald on Twitter, said Moraes's moves were "extremely concerning", while Beatriz Rey, a political scientist at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said Moraes's approach, while not ideal, was necessary because other branches of government, especially the legislature, had not done their duty. Milly Lacombe, in her column on the news website UOL, added that such concerns ignored a greater danger, evidenced by the protests and a failed attack on Lula's inauguration. And she argued that the far-right poses serious dangers to Brazilian democracy, which should overshadow concerns about freedom of expression or interference by the judiciary. "Moraes acts within the law. He does not act outside his powers as a minister, he does not tear up the constitution, he does not do so under criticism from his peers in the Supreme Court."