Greenwald Says “The Intercept” will not Deliver Leaked Messages to Brazilian Authorities

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Journalist Glenn Greenwald, the co-founder of “The Intercept Brasil” website, said on Thursday, during a hearing at the Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ) of the Senate, that he will not deliver to the authorities the messages exchanged by prosecutors and the Minister of Justice, Sérgio Moro, which were published on the website.

According to the journalist, this only occurs in “authoritarian countries.” He said that the authenticity of the messages has been confirmed by experts from The Intercept itself and other press outlets.

“We don’t deliver, and we will never deliver our journalistic material to the police or courts because this is something that happens in authoritarian countries, tyrannies, but not in democracies. What we have done, as professionals, has been thoroughly examined to ensure that the material is authentic.”

Greenwald stated that the messages are not yet complete and that other pieces of material are already being prepared for publication.

“One thing I can say to your Excellency is that we have much more material of public interest, on many other subjects, which is still to be reported.”

Glenn challenged the fact that Moro and prosecutors from the Lava-Jato task force have not vehemently denied any of the messages, merely saying that they may have been tampered with, and ridiculed the minister’s justification of not remembering whether or not he had written the messages, saying that he is suffering from “near amnesia”.

“Sérgio Moro is pretending to suffer from near amnesia; he has such an impaired memory that he can’t remember anything. That lacks credibility”.

He stated that no journalist from The Intercept Brasil had any part in obtaining the messages and that they merely received the full material from their source.

“No journalist, nor myself, had any involvement in the action to obtain and retrieve these documents. My only role was that of a journalist, receiving information of public interest.”