President Michel Temer and Brazil's chief prosecutor were in open warfare yesterday on the eve of a court verdict that could lead to the scandal-plagued president's removal from office.

The front pages of major newspapers were dominated by accusations made by Temer's lawyer that Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot is pressuring the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to rule against Temer when it meets to deliver a verdict, starting today.

Temer has been hanging by a thread since the revelation of a secret audio in which he is allegedly heard giving his blessing to payment of hush money by a meatpacking tycoon to a top politician jailed for corruption.

But starting today, he faces the separate, more immediate challenge of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, known as the TSE.

The TSE is deciding whether abuse of power - principally the use of corrupt campaign money - fatally undermined the validity of the 2014 election in which Temer was reelected vice president with then president Dilma Rousseff. When Rousseff was impeached last year, Temer took over.

If the TSE judges Temer to have been responsible for abuses in 2014, the court could then annul the election results, throwing Brazil into even deeper political chaos.

On Sunday, Temer's lawyer Gustavo Guedes claimed that Janot is leaning on the TSE "to pressure the court and find the president guilty."