Report: PM’s office tried to oust its legal adviser, seen as a Netanyahu adversary

Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office in recent weeks tried to oust the office’s legal adviser Shlomit Barnea Farago, who is despised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Channel 13 news reports.

To extend her tenure, the signature of the office’s director Yossi Shelley was required, and he refused to sign off on the move, the report says.

Shelley was then invited to a meeting with Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon, who explained that failing to sign is akin to firing Barnea Farago.

Ministry legal advisers can’t be fired without a hearing and a justified cause, and the move would be especially problematic in Barnea Farago’s case, since she is a prosecution witness in the ongoing corruption trial against Netanyahu.

Understanding he would be in trouble if he didn’t sign, Shelley then signed off on the tenure extension, according to the report.

The Prime Minister’s Office comments that “the extension of tenures of senior workers is done by the office director in accordance with professional considerations and with good governance rules.”