AG threatens criminal probe after journalist allowed to listen to meeting

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is threatening to open a criminal investigation if a journalist is given unauthorized access to a cabinet meeting again.

During a pre-dawn cabinet meeting early Sunday, Kan reporter Michael Shemesh managed to report quotes in real time, after a participant gave him full access to listen in on the conference call.

“A member of the government or civil servant authorized to participate in a cabinet meeting, through the trust emplaced in them, who allows another actor not authorized to take part in the cabinet meeting to listen in, essentially allowing them to be present, is in violation of their authority and is breaking their duties according to the law,” Mandelblit writes in an official letter.

He says it is not known who put Shemesh on the call.

Minutes from Israeli cabinet meetings are considered top secret and any leak from them is technically illegal.

Reacting to the decision, Shemesh writes on Twitter that “the fact that the attorney general wants to open a criminal investigation against ministers and journalists to stop them from leaking from cabinet meetings should worry any media person and every citizen in a democratic state.”