PM acknowledges Sara met with chief of staff candidates, denies she ‘interviewed’ them

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denies that his wife Sara is closely involved in the affairs of his office or in appointments to his staff, during testimony in his corruption trial at the Tel Aviv District Court.

“There is an urban legend that she interviews them, it’s all nonsense,” Netanyahu says of accusations his wife has been involved in vetting his various chiefs of staff, Channel 12 news reports

“They are not interviews… she doesn’t sit with me when I interview him. It’s possible that she meets with them, yes. In order to understand who the person is. He needs to work with her after all. They don’t sit in a proper interview with her, ‘a job interview.’ I’ve read [the claim] for years, it’s absurd.”

Prosecutor Yehudit Tirosh asks Netanyahu about the matter since he has asserted in testimony that it was not he, but his wife, who sought on various occasions to intervene in news coverage of his affairs by the Walla news website. The premier is accused of repeatedly demanding changes to coverage as part of an illicit quid pro quo with Walla owner Shaul Elovitch.

Netanyahu has claimed that he had nothing to do with such requests, and that he rarely sees Sara during the day due to how busy they both are, and therefore could not have coordinated such requests regarding media coverage through his wife. Tirosh says her line of questioning is designed to show that the couple work together to a much greater extend than the prime minister acknowledges, and that therefore the prime minister was in a position to request his wife’s help.

In the case, known as Case 4000, Netanyahu is alleged to have made various regulatory decisions that favored Elovitch and his business interests, in return for favorable coverage on his Walla news website.

Netanyahu strenuously denies such an arrangement ever existed, and his defense team has pointed to negative coverage by Walla of the prime minister during the period in question to demonstrate that there was no quid pro quo agreement between the two men.