COVID inquiry chair insists it is for her to decide what material is ‘relevant’ amid row over Johnson WhatsApps
The chair of the COVID inquiry says it is up to her to decide what evidence is “relevant or potentially relevant” amid a legal row with the government over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages.
Baroness Hallett said she refused to withdraw her order for the government to hand over unredacted material for her investigation as she formally opened the COVID inquiry on Tuesday.
It comes just days after the government launched a judicial review over her order to the Cabinet Office that it hand over Mr Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages, diary entries and other documents.
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The former prime minister has already sent “all unredacted WhatsApps” directly to the inquiry.
Acknowledging the legal battle, Baroness Hallett said: “As has been widely reported in the media, an issue has arisen between the inquiry and the Cabinet Office as to who decides what is relevant or potentially relevant.
“I issued a notice under Section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005 making it clear that, in my view, it is for the inquiry chair to decide what is relevant or potentially relevant.”
She continued: “The Cabinet Office disagrees, claiming they are not obliged to disclose what they consider to be unambiguously irrelevant material. They invited me to withdraw the Section 21 notice. I declined.
“They are now challenging my decision to decline to withdraw the notice in the High Court by way of judicial review.
“With litigation pending and as the decision-maker, I can make no further comment.”
In its reasoning for launching the judicial review, the government said it had done so with “regret” but that “important issues of principle” were at stake around privacy.
It also questioned whether Baroness Hallett had “the power to compel production of documents and messages which are unambiguously irrelevant to the inquiry’s work”, and argued that requesting such material “represents an unwarranted intrusion into other aspects of the work of government”.
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Ministers have confirmed that they expect an expedited High Court hearing to take place on or shortly after 30 June.
But Mr Johnson decided to bypass the Cabinet Office last week by sending “all unredacted WhatsApps” directly to the COVID inquiry, saying he was “perfectly content” for the material to be inspected.
The former prime minister said he would “like to do the same” with texts that are on an old mobile phone he stopped using due to security concerns in May 2021 – more than a year after the pandemic began.
He said he had asked the government for its help to turn on the device securely to hand over the material.
Hugo Keith KC, a counsel for the inquiry, told Baroness Hallett that Mr Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages and notebooks were going to be compared with redacted copies provided by the Cabinet Office and that the inspection would begin this week.
He said the inspection “will allow your team to make its own assessment as to the redactions applied by the Cabinet Office and to satisfy ourselves and ultimately you of their appropriateness or otherwise”.
Mr Johnson’s locked former phone has also been handed to the government with the hope of obtaining his messages before May 2021, Mr Keith said.
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“Neither Mr Johnson nor the inquiry has the technical expertise to ensure the contents of the phone can be downloaded safely and properly, particularly bearing in mind the overarching need to ensure no damage is done to national security.
“We have therefore agreed that this phone should be provided to the appropriate personnel in government for its contents to be downloaded.
“We have asked the Cabinet Office, in liaison with Mr Johnson and those government personnel, to obtain the phone without delay, to confirm in writing the process by which it will be examined and to give confirmation that it, like the diaries and the notebooks and the WhatsApps, will be accessed fully.
“That is to say, there will be no redactions made to the contents, other than in relation to national security, before we may view it.”
As well as receiving material from Mr Johnson, the inquiry has also received documents with redactions from two other individuals.
It said the Foreign Office had also supplied the inquiry with potentially relevant WhatsApps from two special advisers, with extensive redactions applied to parts that it deemed to be irrelevant.
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By contrast, Mr Keith said the Department of Health and Social Care had provided a “much fuller disclosure”, including messages from Matt Hancock, who was health secretary during the pandemic.
“We would of course invite the Foreign Office the Cabinet Office to pay close regard to the position adopted by the DHSC,” he said.
So far the inquiry has issued 38 requests to government departments and other bodies, 11 to regional mayors and 12 to ministers including former prime minister Liz Truss, former deputy prime minister Dominic Raab, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove.
Following this morning’s preliminary hearing, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said the government was “willing to agree another way forward” when asked whether it wanted to proceed with legal action.
“Obviously we have explored other possibilities for resolution previously. So obviously we continue to speak to the inquiry. And as I say, we are willing to agree another way forward.”
World
Egypt: Two Britons believed to be among 16 missing as tourist boat sinks after being ‘hit by large wave’
Two Britons are believed to be among more than a dozen people missing after a boat sank in the Red Sea off the Egyptian coast.
The yacht, called Sea Story, had 44 people on board, including 31 tourists of varying nationalities and 13 crew.
Authorities are searching for 16 people, including 12 foreign nationals and four Egyptians, the governor of the Red Sea region said, adding that 28 other people had been rescued.
Preliminary reports suggested a sudden large wave struck the vessel, capsizing it within about five minutes, governor Amr Hanafi said.
“Some passengers were in their cabins, which is why they were unable to escape,” he added in a statement.
Survivors rescued from the Sea Story in Marsa Alam. Pic: STR/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
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Passengers rescued from sunken tourist boat
The people who were rescued only suffered minor injuries such as bruises and scrapes with none needing hospital treatment.
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office spokesperson said: “We are providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Egypt and are in contact with the local authorities.”
The foreign nationals aboard the 34-metre-long vessel, owned by an Egyptian national, included Americans, Belgians, British, Chinese, Finns, Germans, Irish, Poles, Slovakians, Spanish, and Swiss.
Sea Story had no technical problems, obtained all required permits before the trip, and was last checked for naval safety in March, according to officials.
The four-deck, wooden-hulled motor yacht was part of a multi-day diving trip when it went down near the coastal town of Marsa Alam following warnings about rough weather.
Officials said a distress call was received at 5.30am local time on Monday.
The boat had left Port Ghalib in Marsa Alam on Sunday and was scheduled to reach its destination of Hurghada Marina on 29 November.
The Sea Story had 44 people on board. File pic: Dive Pro Liveaboard
Some survivors had been airlifted to safety on a helicopter, officials said.
The firm that operates the yacht, Dive Pro Liveaboard in Hurghada, said it has no information on the matter.
According to its maker’s website, the Sea Story was built in 2022.
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The incident comes after the Egyptian Meteorological Authority issued a warning on Saturday about turbulence and high waves on the Red Sea.
The organisation had advised against maritime activity for Sunday and Monday.
Some tourist companies have stopped or limited operations on the Red Sea due to the potential dangers from conflicts in the region.
A motion has been filed to drop the charges against Donald Trump of plotting to overturn the 2020 US presidential election result.
Mr Trump was first indicted on four felonies in August 2023: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
The president-elect pleaded not guilty to all charges and the case was then put on hold for months as Mr Trump’s team argued he could not be prosecuted.
Special Counsel Jack Smith. Pic: Reuters
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On Monday, prosecutors working with special counsel Jack Smith, who had led the investigation, asked a federal judge to dismiss the case over long-standing US justice department policy, dating back to the 1970s, that presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office.
It marks the end of the department’s landmark effort to hold Mr Trump accountable for the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 when thousands of Trump supporters assaulted police, broke through barricades, and swarmed the Capitol in a bid to prevent the US Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Mr Smith’s team had been assessing how to wind down both the election interference case and the separate classified documents case in the wake of Mr Trump’s election victory over vice president Kamala Harris earlier this month, effectively killing any chance of success for the case.
In court papers, prosecutors said “the [US] Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated”.
They said the ban [on prosecuting sitting presidents] “is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind”.
Mr Trump, who has said he would sack Mr Smith as soon as he takes office in January, and promised to pardon some convicted rioters, has long dismissed both the 2020 election interference case and the separate classified documents case as politically motivated.
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He was accused of illegally keeping classified papers after leaving office in 2021, some of which were allegedly found in his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
The election interference case stalled after the US Supreme Court ruled in July that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, which Mr Trump’s lawyers exploited to demand the charges against him be dismissed.
Mr Smith’s request to drop the case still needs to be approved by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
No date had been set for a trial.
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At least 1,500 cases have been brought against those accused of trying to overthrow the election result on 6 January 2021, resulting in more than 1,100 convictions, the Associated Press said.
More than 950 defendants have been sentenced and 600 of them jailed for terms ranging from a few days to 22 years.
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