Prosecutors in Israel are furious as news leaked that judges in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most serious corruption trial told lawyers for both sides privately that they consider one charge too weak to succeed.
The news caused political shockwaves in Israel last week, where Netanyahu faces trial for three counts of corruption. Supporters of Netanyahu have long claimed that the charges are empty and politically motivated.
The most serious charge, in “Case 4000,” is that Netanyahu gave a telecommunications company regulatory favors in exchange for better media coverage. But the regulatory changes would have happened anyway; they did not benefit the company; and Netanyahu never received the good coverage that was supposedly promised. Indeed, Netanyahu, who made a political comeback last year, remains hated by much of the Israeli media,
Last week, as the Times of Israel noted, judges in the case urged both sides to reach a plea deal on the charge:
The judges presiding over the criminal trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have told prosecutors in the case that the bribery charge against the premier will be difficult to prove, Hebrew media outlets reported Thursday.
According to Walla and Channel 13, the judges convened with state prosecutors and Netanyahu’s defense team in their chambers in order to discuss the complexities involved in substantiating the bribery charge against the prime minister in Case 4000, the most significant of the three cases against Netanyahu that make up the trial.
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The bribery charge in Case 4000 was always the most serious facing the prime minister, and if the reports are true, it would mark a significant blow to the prosecution.
Furious at the leak, which has damaged public perceptions of the prosecution’s case, prosecutors asked a court in Jerusalem to have any future meetings between the judges and the lawyers recorded in the courtroom.
Netanyahu’s trials have lasted three years, and are likely to last another five years, given the lengthy list of witnesses. The cases have also fueled enthusiasm among Netanyahu’s supporters to reform Israel’s judiciary.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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