Brasília Tensions Escalate With Gilmar’s Impeachment Ruling, Bacellar’s Arrest and Bolsonaro’s 2026 Move

Overview

• Justice Gilmar Mendes’s injunction limiting who can file impeachment requests against Supreme Court justices drew fierce congressional pushback and prompted AGU chief Jorge Messias to seek reconsideration, which Gilmar rejected, complicating Messias’s stalled Senate confirmation.
• The INSS inquiry rejected bids to summon Messias and Fábio Luís Lula da Silva but approved a hearing for Minas Gerais governor Romeu Zema regarding his family’s finance company in the probe of fraudulent payroll-deducted loans.
• Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the preventive arrest of Rio assembly president Rodrigo Bacellar over alleged leaks tied to Operation Zargun, citing evidence of organized-crime infiltration with interstate and international reach and authorizing further evidence-gathering.
• Rio’s legislature scheduled an extraordinary review with a plenary vote set for Monday on Bacellar’s detention, while Governor Cláudio Castro voiced confidence in the STF and Federal Police and said state agencies have answered Moraes’s information requests.
• Moraes authorized separate, time-limited visits by Michelle and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro to Jair Bolsonaro at Federal Police headquarters, as Jair named Flávio his 2026 pre-candidate and lawmakers sought court approval to inspect the ex-president’s custody conditions.