The Car Wash prosecutors in Brazil seem to have been collaborating with the U.S. Department of Justice, going against Brazilian law and international treaties, according to leaked documents analyzed by The Intercept and the Brazilian investigative outlet Agência Pública released on Thursday.
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The conversations between Brazilian prosecutors - not direct discussions with U.S. officials = show that "the Brazilians were extremely accommodating to their U.S. partners, going out of their way to facilitate their involvement," reported the Intercept.
"The chats published today show that prosecutors on the Car Wash team intentionally ignored procedures outlined in Brazilian law and a bilateral treaty agreement with the U.S., apparently to keep the executive branch of the Brazilian government — then led by Lula's successor and ally, Dilma Rousseff — in the dark about their activities. They also appear to have misrepresented their potentially illegal actions to superiors and the Justice Ministry of Brazil."
Among the findings, The Intercept revealed that the Brazilian team secretly hosted a delegation of U.S. officials, and coached and facilitated U.S. efforts to secure cooperating witnesses in corruption investigations into state-controlled oil giant Petrobras.
Dodging international treaties would have been a way to lessen the control of Brazilian higher authorities in the Ministry of Justice over the judicial procedure while paving the way for a more significant U.S. influence over the case.
Such findings align with previous inquiries from U.S. lawmakers about how aware were U.S prosecutors of their Brazilian counterparts' misbehaving and the possible interference of the U.S. administration in Brazilian domestic affairs. The U.S. Department of Justice has still not responded to the inquiry to this date.