A brief but potentially vital heads up…..
It’s been several weeks since I predicted the dynastic succession was over at Newscorp, mainly because of the independent shareholder rebellion last month, and although James did a worthy stonewalling job at the DCMS select committee this Thursday, that does nothing to stop the three ongoing police investigations here (plus suggestions of a secret ‘Operation Millipede’ in SOCA – our equivalent of the FBI).
But this morning, a very reliable reporter on the Daily Mail suggested that James’ testimony could be blown out of the water thanks to find among the millions of supposed deleted News International emails found on a server in India:
Police investigating phone-hacking at the News of the World have recovered a series of ‘bombshell’ emails which they believe takes the inquiry to ‘a new level’.
The emails were among tens of thousands held by the newspaper at a data storage facility in India.
Police are believed to want to question News International chief James Murdoch and former Sun and News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks about their contents.
Discussions have taken place with the Crown Prosecution Service about whether Mr Murdoch should be arrested and interviewed under caution.Last night it was unclear whether the emails suggest Mr Murdoch and Mrs Brooks were involved in a cover-up of phone-hacking or prove they had knowledge of malpractice at the News of the World, which was closed in July.
Now this only a single source suggesting that either James actively knew about the hacking despite his protestations in Parliament, or indeed participated in the the coverup. But now we have a different source. Andrew Neil, former editor of The Sunday Times, and once quite close to Murdoch. As he tweeted an hour or so ago:
Source close to R Murdoch tells me emails uncovered by police in India (see today’s Daily Mail) potentially ‘devastating’ for James M down.
We don’t know what the revelation yet is, and whether it now requires James’ arrest, or merely proves that he has deceived Parliament. But as most geeks know, computer data – especially if backed up on a variety of servers – is incredibly hard to completely delete: and this bombshell may yet turn into the long awaited smoking gun
In other news: launched today: please support Eric Lewis and myself in the crowd-funded book Bad Press book, detailing the Fall of the House of Murdoch Saga, and relating how the new crowd-sourced media – helped to challenge the old top down media of Newscorp
As Mr Blask said; the Moose got Murdoch
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