PM seeking investigation of journalist over leaked interrogation in ‘Bibi Files’ film
Netanyahu’s lawyers ask attorney general and police chief to probe Channel 13’s Raviv Drucker for his part in documentary, which includes clips of police questioning in graft cases
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the attorney general and chief of police to open a criminal investigation into veteran Channel 13 journalist Raviv Drucker over his part in a recently released documentary movie that includes never-before-seen footage of the premier being interrogated by police over graft suspicions.
Lawyers on behalf of Netanyahu sent a letter with the request on Monday to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and Israel Police Commissioner Daniel Levy. On Tuesday, Netanyahu also requested that the courts prohibit publication of the relevant footage in Israel.
Last week, the Toronto International Film Festival premiered “The Bibi Files,” by director Alexis Bloom and producer Alex Gibney. An Israeli court had turned down a request by Netanyahu to place an injunction on the distribution of the film in Canada, but Israeli law prohibits the unauthorized use of the video clips from Netanyahu’s police questioning. The film festival listed Bloom, Gibney, and Drucker, along with two others, as the producers.
Netanyahu’s lawyers wrote that Drucker’s “conscious and deliberate conduct” over a prolonged period is “intended to improperly influence the proceeding against the prime minister, with the aim of unlawfully harming the prime minister’s most basic rights.”
The lawyers rejected Drucker’s previous claim that he had merely acted as a consultant and assisted with some of the interviews in the film but not in the screening of the footage.
“A joint operation is anyone who participates in the preparation of the conditions and means for committing the crime, even if he is not the one who performs the last action in the chain of actions,” they asserted.
Lawyers also demanded an investigation into how the footage of Netanyahu’s questioning was leaked. They noted that Gibney said publicly in 2023 that he was approached by a source who offered him the footage for the purpose of making a film.
“In view of the flagrant, brazen and deliberate violation of the law,” there should be an investigation of Drucker and of the “illegal leaks,” Netanyahu’s lawyers wrote.
The letter was also included as an appendix to a Tuesday request by Netanyahu’s legal team that the Jerusalem District Court issue a gag order on the publication in Israel of all recordings taken from his interrogations for his corruption trial.
It was not clear why Netanyahu’s lawyers made that request as it is already illegal in Israel to publish recordings from the interrogations.
Relying on interviews with former high-ranking Israeli officials, including convicted former prime minister Ehud Olmert, a survivor of the October 7 terrorist massacre in Kibbutz Be’eri, and others, the film paints a picture of Netanyahu as a leader facing multiple criminal charges, including for bribery, and how his actions since being indicted have affected his decision-making, including around the devastating Hamas-led attack on southern Israel nearly a year ago. The attack prompted the ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The film’s inclusion of interrogation footage has sparked intense interest in Israel, with thousands of people joining online groups that claimed to offer a way to watch the movie covertly. A number of Israeli journalists were among the sold-out crowd at the Lightbox Theater in Toronto.
Last Monday, the Jerusalem District Court rejected a request by Netanyahu to block the screening. The premier’s lawyers had sought an injunction against Drucker for allegedly publishing footage from a police interrogation without permission from the court — a crime that carries up to a year in prison.
Judge Oded Shaham denied the request, but ordered Drucker to respond, which he did, telling the court that the film’s producer, Gibney, asked him to help “as a content consultant both for the matters of Netanyahu’s investigations and for other issues discussed in the film.”
“My role in the production, therefore, consisted of content consultant and coordinating the interviewees,” Drucker stated, describing his position as “associate producer.”
According to Gibney, at least some of the material discussed in the leaked footage has previously found its way into the Israeli media.
The recordings of the premier being questioned by police between 2016 and 2018 were leaked to Gibney last year, according to Variety magazine, and consist of thousands of hours of interviews. The film also features investigators speaking to Netanyahu’s wife Sara and son Yair, along with friends, associates, and household staff.
Netanyahu is on trial for fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases filed in 2019, with one case also carrying a bribery charge. The proceedings are expected to take years to wrap up, especially given delays after the trial was temporarily suspended along with all other non-urgent cases due to Hamas’s shock October 7 incursion and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing in the cases and claims that the charges were fabricated in a witch hunt led by the police and state prosecution, and facilitated by a weak attorney general.
