Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out Monday evening against reviews of his family’s monetary impropriety, slamming media protection of him as “Bolshevik propaganda” unfold by left-wingers bent on bringing him down.
“For years they have buried and sugar coated waste and over spending of tens of millions by prime ministers and presidents from the left, and against me they carry out a campaign of character assassination over ice creams, ready meals and false rumors,” Netanyahu wrote on Facebook, following two nights of Hadashot information broadcasts detailing transcripts of recordings that emerged from 2010 conversations between a former shut confidant of the family and the Prime Minister’s Office high authorized adviser wherein the 2 officers talk about allegedly inappropriate makes use of of public funds by the premier and his spouse.
“Every evening [Hadashot] broadcasts false rumors and character assassinations of me and my family. Real Bolshevik propaganda that is just tales from years ago that never even happened,” Netanyahu charged in his publish. “They repeatedly carry out this demonetization against the right, the religious and traditional Jews – everybody who is not them. It’s clear why the public doesn’t buy their garbage!”
Hours earlier, following related reviews on Sunday, Hadashot launched additional quotes from the recordings made by Netanyahu spokesman-turned-state’s witness Nir Hefetz, that includes conversations Hefetz had with the authorized adviser within the Prime Minister’s Office, Shlomit Barnea Farago.
Former media adviser to the prime minister Nir Hefetz arrives for a remand listening to in Case 4000 on the Tel Aviv District Court, February 22, 2018 (Flash90)
The two are heard within the tapes discussing what they termed “greedy” calls for made by Sara Netanyahu for the state to fund landscaping work on the Netanyahus’ non-public dwelling in Caesarea, amongst different expenditures, in addition to the necessity to “protect the prime minister” from turning into “mixed up” within the alleged misappropriation of public funds, Hadashot mentioned, quoting what it mentioned had been excerpts.
In the newest transcripts, Hefetz at one level describes to Barnea Farago how, when overseas on state journeys with the prime minister, he would give Sara Netanyahu as much as 2,000 a evening in money to spend on meals and buying. That cash can be expensed to the PMO.
In one other quote, Hefetz says that the PMO as soon as paid a 6,000 greenback mini-bar invoice for the Netanyahus.
“But that’s OK. He’s allowed to do that, right?” Hefetz is quoted as asking Barnea Farago, who responds; “Yes, it’s true that he’s allowed but it needs to within reason.”
In Sunday’s broadcast, Herfetz was quoted as saying that Sara would allegedly would take 4 or 5 suitcases price of soiled laundry on state journeys in order that they may ship it for dry cleansing at accommodations the place they stayed, paid for by the state.
Shlomit Barnea Farago (Wikipedia)
Barnea Farago protested: “That’s misuse of public money, to bring laundry that isn’t used on the trip just so it can be dry-cleaned.”
Some of the complaints centered on the dearth of readability concerning the guidelines that utilized to the Netanyahus, particularly when it got here to receiving private presents from well-wishers and world leaders.
After discussing the prohibition on receiving private presents for his or her non-public residence in Caesarea, Hefetz informed Barnea Farago at one level that “you gave me one example of [receiving] gifts, but I know there were many instances of gifts that went straight to [the prime minister’s official residence on] Balfour [Street in Jerusalem].”
Barnea Farago then complained that there wasn’t a onerous and quick rule on the difficulty. “I want the attorney general to tell me what to do, that Yehuda [Weinstein, then the attorney general,] say ‘Balfour rules are Caesarea rules,'” in different phrases, that presents aren't permitted to the prime minister’s official Jerusalem Balfour Street residence both.
“What is this double game?” she calls for of Hefetz. “I have to be the one confronting the prime minister?”
At one level Barnea Farago warns Hefetz, “We have to protect the prime minister so he doesn’t get mixed up in these things, and we also have to protect ourselves. Tomorrow they’ll come and ask how we approved all these things.”
Staff on the prime minister’s two residences have lengthy complained about alleged mistreatment by Sara Netanyahu, complaints which were the topic of lawsuits and media scandals, and have been vehemently denied by the Netanyahus.
The revelations within the tapes are eight years previous, however their publication comes simply three days after state attorneys filed an indictment against Sara Netanyahu for alleged misuse of some $100,000 in state funds between 2010 and 2013.
In Thursday’s indictment, the prime minister’s spouse is charged together with former deputy director normal of the PMO Ezra Saidoff for fraud and breach of belief.
Ezra Saidoff, deputy director of the Prime Minister’s Office, in Jerusalem on May 10, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The two are accused of fraudulently charging some NIS 359,000 ($100,000) in connoisseur meals to the state’s expense through the interval in query, violating guidelines which ban the ordering of ready meals when a chef is already employed on the Prime Minister’s Residence.
As acknowledged by the indictment, Netanyahu falsely claimed there was no cook dinner on the time within the Jerusalem dwelling so as to buy meals from eating places.
The fees against Saidoff are extra extreme as he's additionally accused of illicitly hiring cooks and servers for personal meals on the Netanyahu dwelling. The PMO staffer additionally falsified invoices for such actions so as to get them accredited.
The indictment additionally covers the employment of an electrician, whose hiring had initially been scrapped by the PMO as a result of man’s shut connection to the Netanyahu family.
Saidoff is accused of falsifying paperwork that had been used to avoid the PMO’s authentic order that the electrician’s hiring be annulled.
Yehoshua Reznik, a lawyer for Saidoff, denied the fees, calling them “fundamentally wrong and inconsistent with the legal and factual situation as shown by the evidence in the case.”
Thursday’s fees had been reportedly based mostly partly on testimony from Hefetz.