Brace yourselves everyone. While multiple police enquiries into various aspects of Murdoch's Newscorp are grinding their slow progress through the summer, Tom Watson, the heroic MP and campaigner who has plugged the hackgate story for many wilderness years has just tweeted:
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Documents submitted to DCMS select committee will be published at 12.59pm. On dcms web site. Lobby- I'll be in grimond room at 1pm.
Over the weekend Watson laid the ground for these new revelations:
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Reading documents related to hacking that I'm not allowed to reveal. They're dynamite though. And no point in journos asking for them.
What's at stake: James Murdoch and the 'For Neville' Email
Just to give some context to this. I've always held that morally and politically, the appearance of James and Rupert Murdoch before the House of Commons Media, Culture and Sport Select Committee last month was a crucial moment, because the most powerful man in Britain (Rupert) had to finally meet the people's elected representatives. Most of that appearance was PR and spin (they weren't testifying under oath) and apart from the pie, and Ruperts 'Wizard of Oz' moment, it was fairly boring: especially with James mouthing bland MBA type platitudes.
However, in one crucial submission, James Murdoch claimed that, during a massive payout to a hacking victim in 2009, he knew nothing of the broader scandal. Tom Watson asked him:
"When you signed off the Taylor payment, did you see or were you made aware of the full Neville email, the transcript of the hacked voicemail messages?""No, I was not aware of that at the time."
The former editor and legal advisor to NI have said:
"Just by way of clarification relating to Tuesday's CMS Select Committee hearing, we would like to point out that James Murdoch's recollection of what he was told when agreeing to settle the Gordon Taylor litigation was mistaken....In fact, we did inform him of the 'for Neville' email which had been produced to us by Gordon Taylor's lawyers."
The dossier includes responses by Mr Murdoch to additional questions from MPs, as well as testimony from the paper's head lawyer, Tom Crone, and Colin Myler, who edited the NOTW before it was closed by the Murdoch family's media empire, News Corporation.It addresses the issue of whether Mr Murdoch knew of a crucial email which undermined the explanation that hacking was due to one "rogue reporter". Last week, Tom Watson, a Labour MP on the committee, said the documents were "dynamite" and he would vote for their disclosure....
(snip)
Mr Murdoch, the boss of News Corp in Europe, stands by his testimony to MPs that he had no knowledge of the so-called "for Neville" email, which suggests that knowledge of hacking went beyond one reporter at the NOTW. But his assertion has been challenged by Mr Myler and Mr Crone, who say Mr Murdoch was aware of the email in 2008, when he signed off on a £700,000 out-of-court settlement with Gordon Taylor, head of the Professional Footballers' Association. The Independent understands that a submission has also been supplied to MPs by Harbottle & Lewis, the law firm which conducted a review of internal News International emails in 2007 and found they contained no evidence of "illegal actions".
Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, who reviewed the documents in
In other words, the revelations today could prove that James Murdoch was lying to Parliament, and that the last five years of Newscorp's activities have been a massive coverup.
I was watching All the President's Men again last night, and one of Deep Throat's lines stuck with me.
Deep Throat:"In a conspiracy like this, you build from the outer edges and go step by step. If you shoot too high and miss, everybody feels more secure "
So maybe this will finally move the scandal right up to the senior management of Newscorp and the Murdoch family? Has Watson shot to high? Will this be a damp squib? Or the beginning of the end for James?
Bear with me as I update this diary below the fold with news of whatever the next stage of this scandal holds. The best liveblog is the Guardian's. The documents will be released at 8 a.m. EST, but Robert Peston (who has good contacts with a senior NI executive Will Lewis) is already leaking some of the revelations from Harbottle and Lewis, the law firm engaged at the time.
Harbottle & Lewis says News International and the Murdochs were wrong to rely on its advice as evidence that hacking was not widespread
When your lawyers turn against you, as Annette K diaried this weekend, in a perspicacious piece about the Watergate analogies by John Dean, then you're in trouble.