The Brazilian government’s filing of criminal charges against the American journalist Glenn Greenwald is an increasingly familiar case of shooting the messenger and ignoring the message.

Mr. Greenwald is best known for his role in the release of national security documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, in 2013. In Brazil, where he moved 15 years ago to be with his now-husband, an opposition Brazilian congressman, Mr. Greenwald co-founded a Portuguese-language version of his investigative news site, The Intercept, which has become a thorn in the side of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Last June, The Intercept Brasil published a series of articles, based on leaked cellphone messages, that appeared to show illegal collusion with prosecutors by Sérgio Moro, the judge who had become a superstar corruption-buster for jailing scores of businessmen and politicians, including the popular former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Jailing Mr. da Silva knocked him out of the race for president, clearing the way for the election of Mr. Bolsonaro — who then appointed Mr. Moro as his justice minister. Now, in addition to that implicit conflict of interest, the hacked messages suggested that Mr. Moro had violated Brazilian law, under which judges are supposed to be neutral arbiters, to help Mr. Bolsonaro. And this by a man previously lionized for his assault on entrenched corruption.