Lava Jato Leaks: Is Brazilian Folha de S.Paulo Newspaper Joining The Intercept’s Fight?

By Arkady Petrov

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – In secret, the Frias family who owns the well established Folha de S.Paulo newspaper in São Paulo, appointed a team to unveil new findings on the work of former judge and current Justice Minister Sérgio Moro and the Lava Jato task force, in a partnership with Glenn Greenwald’s website, report various Brazilian media outlets in their latest accounts.

This would be the second major partnership, after some of the material was shared with Reinaldo Azevedo and BandNews, the owner of which, Johnny Saad, has criticized Lava Jato. Saad said that Lava Jato is the main culprit for the current crisis in Brazil.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald and the Intercept team, in partnership with the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, are said to be currently working on investigating new facts in connection with the so-called Vaza Jato (Lava Jato Leaks), the scandal on Sérgio Moro and Deltan Dallagnol leaks, which uncovered the procedural fraud against former president Lula.

This is a major development since, until Friday, June 21, Greenwald and his team had been working alone, relying only on the impact of other vehicles.

On Thursday, however, the first partnership yielded its rewards, when journalist Reinaldo Azevedo and BandNews announced that Moro had selected the indictment team, defining which prosecutors should or should not act in Lula’s interrogation.

A new partnership is said to be signed with Folha, at a time when media groups closer to Lava Jato are seeking to criminalize Greenwald’s activity. Yesterday, embattled Greenwald even said: “if you want to arrest me, you will have to arrest many journalists.”

As for Band, Johnny Saad harshly criticized the financial damage caused by Lava Jato in recent years. Concerning the Folha, new chapters of Vaza Jato are expected to be released this weekend.

Folha de S.Paulo is the centerpiece for Grupo Folha, a conglomerate that also controls UOL (Universo Online), the leading Internet portal in Brazil; newspaper Agora São Paulo; polling institute Datafolha; publishing house Publifolha; book imprint Três Estrelas; printing company Plural; and, in a joint venture with the Globo group, the business daily Valor, among other enterprises.

Ever since 1986, Folha has had the biggest circulation among the largest Brazilian newspapers – according to data by IVC (Instituto Verificador de Circulação).