For the first time in my life, I called a senior law enforcement officer on my own initiative when I was the one who wanted to provide information. "I heard that Weinstein ordered an investigation into Bibi Tours. I'm sure he just wants to bury it and is using you, but if you're serious, I also have material on the businessman who financed Bibi (Dedi Graucher), as well as on other trips that allegedly had double financing, and I decided to call anyway, because some of my sources in the case asked to check with you to see if you were really investigating.".
The man I spoke to was not one of the most merciful law enforcement officials. He was silent for a few seconds. It was as if I had offered him a guided tour of hell. "The consultant requested a spot check on only two matters," he said, "I will check and get back to you.".
He's back. I'll spare you the embarrassing answer (and the chance of being exposed). I'll just say that he didn't meet me or anyone else. He didn't ask for any material, didn't want to know who the other witnesses were who were willing to testify, nothing.
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Here are some of the reasoning used by the Attorney General in deciding not to open a criminal investigation against Benjamin Netanyahu for financing his trips abroad, a decision that came three and a half years after most of the facts were published in the "Source" investigation on Channel 10:
1. Attorney Shimron, Mr. Netanyahu's attorney, provided clarifications in several letters regarding the alleged double financing. According to the Bozaglo test, it turns out that suspicions about a person are first examined in front of their lawyer. God forbid he be surprised. I wonder if Attorney Eli Zohar was asked by the prosecutor's office to provide "clarifications" after it was discovered that Olmert's travel was double-funded at the Rishon Tours agency. As far as I remember, Olmert was taken for questioning by surprise and was not given an infinite amount of time to prepare and come up with explanations.
On one of the trips that were supposedly being investigated, two parties paid for Mr. Netanyahu’s plane ticket, one of them being Bonds. Attorney Shimron claimed that Bonds’ invoice was mistakenly registered in Benjamin Netanyahu’s name, when it should have been registered in his wife, Sara. A mistake? Bonds representatives testified to the Comptroller’s Office that they would not have financed Mrs. Netanyahu’s flight. Perhaps that is why the “mistake” was made in the registration?
Furthermore, the Comptroller discovered in his investigation other alleged duplicate invoices from the time Netanyahu was Finance Minister. Why weren't they reviewed?
2. The State Comptroller's Office already provided the State Comptroller's Office with direct testimony in August 2011 about the alleged transfer of funds from a businessman named David Graucher to Netanyahu's driver to pass on to his boss. Weinstein states that there were contradictions in the testimony and an inconsistent version, but "no evidentiary foundation was found." How will it be found? When the story reached the State Comptroller's Office, a senior official there told me, "This is more than Talansky." I told him he was exaggerating, but it was definitely worth checking.
It's interesting how Israel's political history would have unfolded if, after Talansky testified to the police against Olmert, instead of questioning him by surprise, the investigators had sent a polite letter to his lawyer and asked for clarification (perhaps Olmert would still be prime minister today).
This is what was done in the Netanyahu case. The Attorney General delayed and did not order an investigation. The Comptroller's Office requested written explanations from Netanyahu's lawyer. Everyone arranged their testimonies. The second witness to the money transfer gave the Comptroller's testimony. I wonder what she would have said if investigators had shown up at her house. A key witness in the case was Naftali Bennett. The witness to the money transfer (who also caught a cold in the time between the Comptroller's investigation and the time the investigators reached him) said that he was so shocked by what he saw that he immediately shared the story with the then head of the bureau, Bennett. A State Comptroller came to Bennett's house in Ra'anana and simply 'did not remember' the story. I wonder what he would have said if investigators from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had shown up at his house unexpectedly.
3. The advisor writes in his statement, "From the material collected at the State Comptroller's Office, it became clear - among other things - the identity of the person who organized Mr. Netanyahu's travel. In the version collected from her at the Comptroller's Office, she claimed that Mr. Graucher financed Mr. Netanyahu's stay abroad during two trips to New York." How does this not lead to the opening of a criminal investigation? Weinstein explained that she retracted her testimony at the Comptroller's Office regarding one of the trips. Besides, a lot of time has passed.
These lines in the attorney's statement are perhaps the sharpest expression of Weinstein's lack of good faith. The identity of the travel coordinator was not "cleared up" and was not disclosed. The whole world knew that Odelia Carmon served in the position in 2006-2007. Only the attorney revealed this in 2013. Carmon even wrote candidly about this role in a book she published, and even there one could find public confirmation of her testimony. If she really recanted part of her testimony, she cannot be blamed. The law enforcement system threw her to the dogs once in the Katsav case. She testified bravely, helped greatly to establish the conviction, and in return, her blood is still being shed in the Internet city square (contrary to the law), and none of the people who asked for her help in the Katsav trial came to her aid. Besides, why would a sane person testify against a sitting prime minister, when he sees that the attorney general has not even opened an investigation for three and a half years?
An investigation was opened against Deri for less than that.
When the findings of the "source" investigation were forwarded to the State Comptroller's Office, a senior official there told me, "The police had much less material when they opened investigations against Deri, Lieberman, and Netanyahu." He seemed quite shocked that the advisor was refusing to open an investigation.
At the end of the Comptroller's investigation, the findings were forwarded to the consultant. The Comptroller determined that there were indeed a series of cases in which businessmen allegedly financed trips abroad by Benjamin Netanyahu and his family. A series of businessmen who financed the Netanyahu family's trips abroad were mentioned in the "Source" investigation and in the Comptroller's document: Puyo Zaveldovich, Mark Blazberg, Spencer Partridge, and others. The Comptroller's Office asked the Attorney General to order legal investigations abroad, an action that the Comptroller's staff cannot carry out. Only investigators who will collect testimony abroad will be able to verify or refute the suspicion that there was a flaw in the established method by which Netanyahu traveled abroad for years, including while he was Minister of Finance. Needless to say, legal investigations were not conducted, key witnesses in the case were not summoned to the police, the subject of the investigation, the Prime Minister, was not required to provide a version, and no one even thought of conducting a search of computers or properly interrogating his travel agent.
There is no certainty that the most serious investigation in the world would have resulted in an indictment against Netanyahu. There may not even have been a criminal flaw in his actions, but when the advisor fumbles for three and a half years, only to announce on Thursday evening (a graveyard for news, as we know) that due to the "passage of time" he is not opening a criminal investigation, it is hard to avoid the feeling that Attorney Weinstein has done his former client Netanyahu a favor.
