PM’s associates, ex-AG sabotaged original ‘Bibi Tours’ probe, charges MK
Weinstein worked to ‘plaster over affair, drag feet and sabotage comptroller’s work,’ claims Zionist Union’s Yoel Hasson
Former attorney general Yehuda Weinstein conspired with individuals close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try to sabotage a probe by State Comptroller Yosef Shapira into suspected financial misconduct in the so-called “Bibi Tours” affair, Deputy Knesset Chairman Yoel Hasson (Zionist Union) charged Tuesday, shortly before the release of Shapira’s damning report on the affair.
“As someone who was as involved, just like you were, from the first day of the affair on the [Knesset] State Control Committee, I know how behind-the-scenes efforts were made to smooth over the affair, to drag feet, and to sabotage the work of the comptroller in order to outlast the statute of limitations [which determines that criminal charges cannot be brought beyond a certain time period],” Hasson wrote, according to the Ynet news site.
The comptroller’s report, published at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, found that as finance minister a decade ago, Netanyahu had private donors and organizations fund most of his trips as well as cover travel expenses for his wife and children, and failed to clear the information with the Knesset.
The complicated affair, dubbed “Bibi Tours” by the Hebrew press, centers on allegations that Netanyahu had double-billed travel expenses while serving as a member of Knesset and minister in prime minister Ariel Sharon’s government. It was first reported by Channel 10 in 2011.
Channel 2 on Monday night said police are seeking to determine whether there were grounds to reopen a full criminal investigation into alleged irregularities by Netanyahu, and the Justice Ministry said it, too, was looking into the report.
A press release from the comptroller’s office maintained that Shapira had pressed Weinstein in 2015 to reopen an investigation into several matters, given the “suspicion of criminal [wrongdoing].”
He had given additional information to Weinstein that he, Shapira, thought could be criminal — namely the allegations of double billing, diversion of funds, and using the state’s frequent-flyer miles for personal use.
Given the ongoing evaluation of the materials by Weinstein’s successor, Netanyahu’s former cabinet secretary Avichai Mandelblit, those issues could not be explicitly addressed in the new report, a statement from Shapira’s office said.
Hasson urged Weinstein to come clean about what the MK called attempts to whitewash Tuesday’s report, as well as other efforts to scupper further investigation into the matter on the grounds that the period in which charges could be brought had expired.
“Now the burden of proof is on you to show that you did not act with associates of the prime minister in the dead of night to thwart the investigation,” Hasson said.
The MK said that in 2011, then-state comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss and retired senior police investigator Nahum Levi were given wide authority by the Knesset State Control Committee to probe the double billing allegations. Lindenstrauss pledged to complete the probe within a short time, but according to Hasson, that did not happen.
“The process dragged on for years, beyond the reasonable time for an investigation, because of a lack of cooperation on the part of the attorney general and the government of the time,” Hasson claimed, alleging that the prolonging of the process proved that the “senior guardians of the law failed to serve the public interest.”
MK Karin Elharar (Yesh Atid), the current head of the State Control Committee, also suggested that Weinstein had glossed over the affair.
“As everyone knows today, Weinstein couldn’t make a decision [since May 2015], or perhaps he didn’t want to make a decision and passed it on to the new attorney general,” she said.
Elharar also maintained the information omitted from the state comptroller report “and what the public is not being told” was “more important” than the report itself.
The Times of Israel Community.