Brazil’s Justice Minister, Sérgio Moro, has been granted a leave of absence following damaging leaks that have cast doubts over his impartiality as a judge in a sweeping graft scandal. According to a report in The Guardian, Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right President, approved the break, from 15-19 July, for Moro to ‘deal with personal matters’, according to an official government document published this week. The Ministry said Moro would be on holiday, but analysts speculated Moro’s job was threatened following leaked cell phone chats which showed that as a judge, he guided prosecutors in the investigation which led to the imprisonment of powerful businessmen and politicians, including the former Workers’ Party president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The leaks, published by some of Brazil’s major media outlets, have unleashed a political storm. Moro became a national hero for his role in Operation Car Wash. In July 2017, he jailed Lula, who was then barred from last year’s presidential elections. Soon after Bolsonaro won the Presidency, Moro accepted the job as Justice Minister. He has maintained that the conversations showed no wrongdoing, describing them as a ‘criminal attack’ and suggesting they had been doctored. ‘Moro was always seen as untouchable,’ said Rafael Cortez, a political scientist and partner at São Paulo consulting outfit Tendências. Now, Cortez said, he and the Car Wash prosecutors ‘have become hostages to the next leaks’.