Some Clarifications Re: Lula's Release
No, this isn't a vindication, and no, Greenwald is not responsible for it
Lula’s conviction was recently overturned by the Brazilian Supreme Court. This is just a quickie post regarding what this means.
The decision was a narrow matter of jurisdiction. Sérgio Moro, who presided over Lula’s convictions, was a district judge at the time. The Car Wash prosecutions were limited to corruption related to the state-owned Petrobrás, but the operation acted according to a legal understanding that, because the kickbacks paid in cash in the case were fungible, any corruption associated with the pools of party funds to which Petrobrás corruption schemes contributed were under its purview.
This is, of course, a chancy strategy, but it had been condoned by the high court for years until this week, when a Supreme Court justice annulled the conviction, holding that the proper jurisdiction for the prosecutions against Lula was not Moro’s but the nation’s capital.
The decision may still be reverted by a vote by all 11 justices. The Brazilian Supreme Court is notoriously fickle, and justices very often act unilaterally in politically charged questions like this.
In any case, this decision is emphatically not a vindication of Lula’s innocence; if the decision holds, he will be retried in the district deemed appropriate. The decision was also unrelated in any technical sense to Glenn Greenwald’s Car Wash leaks, except perhaps in a political sense—though of course, such a political use of the legal system is exactly what Greenwald accused Moro of doing in the first place.
But do not forget, no matter the outcome of these proceedings, Lula is a crook and Greenwald is a lying cunt.