Who is Alexandre de Moraes, the judge in the center of the Trump government war against Brazil

Observers have said that Trump sees what happens with Bolsonaro a reflection of his actions on January 6, 2021 with the assault on the Capitol, for which he faced in the House of Representatives a political trial to dismiss him as a president of which he was exonerated.

Bolsonaro's followers did something similar in January 2023, when they invaded the venues of the three powers in Brazil to try to avoid assuming Lula.

When announcing the commercial measure, the White House also loaded against Moraes and in a statement accused him of abusing “his judicial authority to threaten, persecute and intimidate thousands of his political opponents, protect corrupt allies and repress the dissent.”

However, the magistrate received an official solidarity message from the Brazilian Supreme, who defended the process against Bolsonaro. And those who know him rule out that Washington's sanctions can intimidate him.

“The effect is reverse,” says Miguel Reale Júnior, a former Brazilian Minister of Justice who knows Moraes since he was his law professor. “He is a fighter person, who does not flee from the confrontation,” he adds in dialogue to BBC Mundo.

In fact, at 56 years old and fond of art Marcial Muay Thai, this judge has long seen to cope with controversies, pressures and high voltage causes.

Raised in a middle class family, Moraes received his training in Law at the University of São Paulo, a traditional center for studies of Brazilian future politicians where he would later return as a professor.

After receiving he worked as a prosecutor, he held public positions in São Paulo and in 2014 he was appointed Secretary of Security of that state by then governor Geraldo Alckmin, today Vice President of Brazil.

Alckmin and Moraes then belonged to the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), of Centrodécha. Moraes would be disenteed of this force before assuming in the Supreme Court, because the Brazilian Constitution prohibits judges from having political-partisan activities.

As responsible for the most populous state security in Brazil, Moraes led one of the police forces that kill the most in the country, and applied hard -handed efficacy policies.

His controversial entry to the Brazilian national scene occurred in 2016, when leftist president Dilma Rousseff was dismissed in a political trial and replaced by vice president Michel Temer, who appointed Moraes Minister of Justice.

At that time, from the left and social movements accused fear of hitting Rousseff.

But Moraes referred to the protests against the impeachment of the president as “guerrilla acts” and, when assuming as a minister, he warned that he would prevent the protesters from cutting the circulation of vehicles.

At that time he was defined as the “Temer Pitbull” in a column of the Brazilian newspaper Value.

However, Moraes' action as a minister lasted just a few months: at the beginning of 2017, Temer chose him to occupy one of the 11 chairs of Supreme Judges who had been free.

Paradoxically, many on the right who then applauded Moraes now consider him an enemy, while on the left defend his performance as a judge.

In addition to the process to Bolsonaro, Moraes has led several more causes against what he considers direct threats to Brazilian democracy.

In 2019, with Bolsonaro in the Government, he looked at what would call “digital militias” from followers of the president who in his opinion spread misinformation on the Internet and defamed opponents.

His argument is that the extreme right and populists use social networks such as X (extwitter) to discredit Brazil's democratic institutions and take power unconstitutionally.

“If Goebbels lived and had an X, we would be convicted,” Moraes told The New Yorker in April. “The Nazis would have conquered the world.”

The justice itself established special powers with which Moraes promoted investigations, suspended accounts on social networks and ordered numerous arrests under the argument of the defense of democracy.

Last year, after ordering the closure of Bolsonaristas accounts in X, the owner of this social network, Elon Musk, broke out of fury and said that “Moraes should resign or be dismissed.”

But Moraes kept the pulse with Billonario: he prohibited access X in Brazil for a few weeks and frozen bank accounts associated with Starlink, another Musk company, who in the end accepted his orders and fines.

Brazilian and foreign media have warned about possible excesses by Moraes, which could limit freedom of expression.

Some also point out that the Supreme Court acts at the same time as a prosecutor and judge, when opening investigations and being the last court. And sometimes even as a victim: according to the complaint, the coup plot included plans to kill Lula, Alckmin and Moraes.

Former Reale Júnior Minister says that his former student and colleague in the Law Faculty has “sometimes a certain exaggerated rigor, but his decisions in general are well founded” and ratified by the majority of the Supreme.

“You have to remember that he comes from the Public Ministry, then it comes a bit with an accusatory vision,” he explains.

Married and with three children, Moraes now has ahead what may well be the biggest challenge of his career.

The trial of Bolsonaro that bothers Trump so much is in his final stage and, if the former president is convicted, he could receive a penalty of more than 40 years in jail.

Bolsonaro rejects the accusations of attempted suddenly and affirms that they are part of a political persecution.

His son Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian deputy who moved to the US and maintained contacts with the Trump government, celebrated Moraes' sanction on Wednesday as “historical.”

Lula has described the Bolsonaro as traitors of the homeland and Trump as “emperor” who seeks to overwhelm Brazilian sovereignty, stating that the Supreme acts independently.

For now, Moraes doesn't seem to blink with Washington's pressure.

A few days after Trump demanded to end the process to Bolsonaro, he folded the bet and ordered the police to place the former president an electronic anklet for understanding that there was a risk of escape.

Now, after US sanctions, the question is what will be the next movement of the judge in the middle of Trump's confrontation with Brazil.

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