Netanyahu’s chief of staff to be questioned under caution in blackmail case

Tzachi Braverman, who serves as chief of staff to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will be questioned under caution today by the police’s Lahav 443 serious crimes unit, Hebrew media reports.

Braverman was reported on Sunday to be the official suspected of blackmailing an IDF officer to allegedly alter minutes from wartime meetings by threatening him over a sensitive video recording of the officer.

The case, one of several scandals roiling the Prime Minster’s Office, is largely under a court gag order. The reports say police will ask to lift the order after he completes his questioning.

Braverman’s name was first reported by the Kan public broadcaster, which also stated that the video in question had been obtained from security cameras in the PMO and that other PMO employees had been allowed to watch the recording.

In a statement, Braverman denied any such activity, calling the report “false” and “defamatory,” and claiming he had neither collected any such video nor attempted to use it for blackmail purposes: “This is a lie from start to finish, whose aim is to harm me and the Prime Minister’s Office in the middle of a war.”