Will Lewis, the Washington Put up writer, suggested Boris Johnson and senior officers at 10 Downing Road to “clear up” their telephones within the midst of a Covid-era political scandal, in accordance with claims by three folks acquainted with the operations inside No 10 on the time.
The recommendation is alleged to have been given in December 2021 and January 2022 as high officers had been below scrutiny for potential violations of pandemic restrictions, which was referred to as “Partygate”.
The claims counsel Lewis’s recommendation contradicted an e-mail despatched to workers at No 10 in December 2021 which instructed them to not destroy any materials that might be related to an investigation into the flagrant breaking of Covid lockdown guidelines by Johnson and officers who labored for him.
Sources mentioned they understood they had been being suggested to take away photographs and messages from their telephones that might be damaging in any investigations.
Lewis, the sources alleged, made among the requests personally as he was finishing up work as a casual adviser to Johnson from late 2021 to July 2022.
Lewis was a member of a so-called “mind belief” of Johnson’s shut political allies who had been main an effort – codenamed Operation Save Large Canine – that attempted however in the end didn’t salvage Johnson’s premiership. Lewis was awarded a knighthood in 2023 for his political service to the conservative prime minister.
The allegations relating to Lewis’s recommendation relate to a interval lined by a civil service investigation and earlier than the Partygate scandal turned a police matter. The Metropolitan police launched its investigation on 25 January 2022.
A spokesperson for Lewis mentioned: “This story is categorically unfaithful.”
A spokesperson for Johnson instructed the Guardian: “This story is unfaithful.”
Lewis, 55, was appointed writer of the Washington Put up in November 2023. His future is trying unsure, nevertheless, after a collection of damaging tales in US media shops, together with the Washington Put up, about his journalistic document and alleged efforts to kill damaging tales about him.
A latest story within the New York Occasions reported allegations that Lewis and Robert Winnett, a former colleague of Lewis’s within the UK who was not too long ago appointed to run the newsroom as govt editor, used “fraudulently obtained telephone and firm data in newspaper articles” after they labored as journalists in London 20 years in the past. The article cited a former colleague, the printed account of a personal investigator and a New York Occasions evaluation of newspaper archives. Neither Lewis nor Winnett responded to questions by the New York Occasions.
In its personal article, the Washington Put up claimed that Winnett used materials from a so-called “blagger” who obtained the data utilizing deception whereas working as a journalist on the Sunday Occasions through the 2000s.
Winnett didn’t reply to questions from the Put up. The Sunday Occasions mentioned in response to this and former experiences that it “strongly rejected” accusations it had “retained or commissioned any particular person to behave illegally”.
Whereas Lewis’s journalistic document has been re-examined, far much less consideration has been paid to his temporary stint in politics serving the previous controversial conservative chief Boris Johnson.
The pair reportedly had a piece affiliation in addition to a friendship, which included Johnson returning to work as a columnist for the Telegraph in 2008, when Lewis was editor of the conservative newspaper.
Johnson was paid £250,000 a yr for the weekly column, and described this cost as “hen feed”. It was his second wage to his “day job” of mayor of London, for which he was paid £140,000.
Lewis’s determination to hitch Johnson as a casual adviser adopted his April 2020 departure from Dow Jones, the place he served as writer of the Wall Road Journal.
The adviser function was unpaid, in accordance with experiences, and got here at an more and more determined political second for Johnson.
after e-newsletter promotion
The then prime minister was going through enormous stress from the general public and his personal political celebration over his data of partying throughout lockdowns inside No 10. The UK’s most senior civil servant, Simon Case, stepped down from his function investigating lockdown-breaking events inside Downing Road after claims emerged he had hosted an occasion himself over the identical interval. The police investigation was launched on 25 January 2022 and in the end led to Johnson being fined for breaching restrictions.
Operation Save Large Canine, so known as as a result of Johnson referred to himself as Large Canine and his precept personal secretary, civil servant Martin Reynolds, as a “loyal labrador”, reportedly concerned plans to fireside high-profile figures inside No 10 that might be blamed for Johnson’s political difficulties.
The operation and allegations that stress was being placed on workers to delete proof of lockdown-busting events had been first reported in January 2022.
Sources declare that they had been instructed to “clear up” their telephones of photographs and messages associated to partying which flew within the face of the lockdown restrictions Britain’s political leaders had imposed on the remainder of the nation.
It was later confirmed that Johnson had data of a number of occasions and he was issued with a fixed-penalty discover. Sources, who spoke on the situation of anonymity given the delicate nature of the claims, mentioned Lewis made a few of these requests to scrub up telephones personally.
The allegations by the sources counsel that Lewis’s recommendation contradicted an e-mail despatched in December 2021 that instructed workers to not destroy any supplies that might be pertinent to any potential future investigation. It’s unclear if Lewis himself noticed the emailed instruction.
The disappearance of WhatsApp messages from inside No 10 was individually raised in an unrelated episode.
A Covid inquiry in Britain in December 2023 heard from Penny Mourdant, who served as Johnson’s paymaster basic through the pandemic, {that a} collection of WhatsApp messages with Johnson had mysteriously disappeared from her telephone. She instructed the inquiry she seen messages had been lacking in Could 2021 and that she had tried to repeatedly increase the problem with No 10. Johnson himself gave proof that about 5,000 WhatsApp messages from his previous telephone, protecting the interval from January to June 2020, had been inconceivable to retrieve. He instructed the inquiry he had not eliminated any WhatsApp messages from his telephone.
Lewis has individually confronted accusations in court docket proceedings in Britain that he helped lead a cover-up of felony exercise by his former employer, Information Corp, by which tens of millions of doubtless damaging emails had been deleted that might have uncovered extra particulars about using hacking by the now defunct Information of the World tabloid and the Solar, one other Information Corp publication.
Information UK, the British subsidiary of Information Corp, has mentioned in response to experiences on hacking claims that it has been “paying monetary damages to these with correct claims” and that it has made “industrial sense” to agree a settlement in some circumstances. It has additionally mentioned the Solar doesn’t settle for legal responsibility or make any admissions within the disputed claims nonetheless going via the civil courts.
Lewis has beforehand denied the allegations and isn’t a celebration to the proceedings. British prosecutors determined in December 2015 to not file felony prices in opposition to Rupert Murdoch’s Information UK, saying on the time that there was no proof that e-mail deletion was undertaken to pervert the course of justice.
Lewis reportedly sought to place stress on Sally Buzbee, the outgoing govt editor on the Washington Put up, over the paper’s protection of the cover-up allegations, in accordance with experiences within the New York Occasions and NPR. A spokesperson mentioned in an announcement: “William didn’t stress Ms Buzbee from publishing any tales throughout her tenure on the Put up, together with the tales she introduced as much as him. To counsel in any other case is totally false.”
Supply hyperlink
