On Wednesday morning, Bernie Sanders tweeted his support for former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, imprisoned since April of last year on flimsy corruption charges. Sanders was responding to bombshell exposés published by the Intercept last Sunday documenting collusion between the chief prosecutor and the presiding judge in Lula’s case. That judge, Sergio Moro, consistently maintained that his handling of Lula’s case was entirely apolitical — even after he was appointed minister of justice by Lula’s opponent, the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. That pretense has now been discredited by the Intercept’s reporting.

Bernie joined “with political and social leaders across the globe who are calling on Brazil’s judiciary to release Lula and annul his conviction.” The Intercept has many more documents at its disposal, their impact as yet unknown. But an important shift may be at hand in Brazilian politics, particularly if Lula’s sentence is overturned as a result of Moro’s now-exposed antics.

Bolsonaro has already shown himself ill-equipped to deal with the doubts now gathering over Lula’s conviction. When asked about the findings at a press conference on Tuesday, Bolsonaro abruptly stormed out of the room. During the election last year, polls clearly demonstrated that Lula, substantially ahead of Bolsonaro, would have won the election. If Lula’s hasty trial was driven by a partisan political agenda — something the Left has argued from the start but that now can be proven — Bolsonaro’s legitimacy as president will be called into question domestically.