A-G vows urgent inquiry into watchdog’s allegations on PM expenses

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said Tuesday that he would hold an immediate inquiry into the findings of the state comptroller’s report on travel expenses claimed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his stint as finance minister over a decade ago.

These allegations “must be inspected without delay, in a direct and professional manner,” the attorney general said. “We won’t deviate from professional standards.”

“Regarding the findings published in today’s report: Since taking office I devoted time to an in-depth examination of this issue,” Mandelblit said. “Naturally, I cannot elaborate on the nature of the material received by the comptroller and its legal significance, but it will be clearly stated once we have completed an examination of the issues in a professional and precise manner.”

Comptroller Yosef Shapira’s report, which was released Tuesday afternoon, said that during his stint as finance minister over a decade ago, Netanyahu had private donors and organizations fund most of his trips as well as cover travel expenses for his wife and children, and failed to clear the information with the Knesset.

In the report, Comptroller Shapira chided Netanyahu for failing to approach legal experts to weigh in on whether the trips, between 2003 and 2005, represented a conflict of interest or illicit gifts. Some allegations were omitted from the report, pending the attorney general’s examination of the case, Shapira said.

The Prime Minister’s Office said that Tuesday the report indicated a “mountain was made out of a molehill” in the affair, and charged that the state comptroller was attempting to retroactively apply regulations on ministerial travel that were formulated in 2008, years after the trips in question. Netanyahu denied the allegations of criminal conduct and said he was “convinced” the attorney general would not find reason to launch an investigation.