Washington Post CEO allegedly tricked police in British tabloid scandal: NPR

Will Lewis, pictured here in the Washington Post newsroom, was a top executive at Rupert Murdoch’s British publishing company 13 years ago. He is accused of misleading police when Murdoch’s newspapers destroyed evidence of phone hacking.
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LONDON — Lawyers for Prince Harry and prominent British politicians charged today WashingtonPost CEO and publisher Will Lewis is said to have fabricated a story 13 years ago to cover up evidence of possible crimes at Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids from the police.

In court, lawyers argued that Lewis “constructed a false security threat” in January 2011 to justify the deletion of millions of emails from the period between early 2008 and late 2010. The company’s plaintiffs see this action as part of a larger cover-up.

The Murdoch newspaper company, now called News UK, denies those allegations. Lewis has largely denied any wrongdoing but declined to comment to NPR today.

Since a simmering phone-tapping scandal escalated into a full-blown crisis in the summer of 2011, the Murdochs have paid more than $1.5 billion to settle dozens of lawsuits.

The tabloids’ targets include crime victims, athletes, celebrities, royals and politicians – some of whom now claim the Murdoch company violated their privacy not just for headlines, but as part of industrial espionage. News UK denies this, pointing out that it is an allegation made as part of its legal action against the company. Lewis is not a defendant in the cases.

Two politicians are accused of trying to steal company emails

In July 2011, when police first learned of the deleted emails, Lewis said Murdoch’s company had been forced to delete the emails because he and a senior executive had received a tip-off nearly six months earlier: an “outside source” had told them that former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had conspired with a News UK employee and another person to steal the CEO’s emails. The unnamed person was said to be Tom Watson, then a leading member of parliament and a Murdoch critic. The IT employee was later found to be a former News UK employee.

Brown has called the claim false and outrageous. He has asked Scotland Yard to conduct a criminal investigation into the episode involving Lewis. Watson, one of numerous plaintiffs suing News UK for illegal invasion of privacy, has denied this. In court, lead trial counsel for Watson, Harry and the others called the story “a ruse.”

In a statement to NPR, News UK said it was responding to a genuine concern: that someone was trying to steal CEO Rebekah Brooks’ emails. The company said it did not use the suspected security breach as a reason for deleting the emails. It did not inform police of the alleged breach earlier because it hired an outside consultant to conduct “forensic investigations” and found no evidence of tampering.

“(News UK) had received intelligence that there was a direct threat that a current or former employee was actively attempting to sell (the company’s) data,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “The intelligence indicated that the threat involved Ms Brooks’ data and involved a level of technical detail that made it more serious and credible. These factors contributed to the decision to ensure that multiple copies of confidential (News UK) data should not be stored in the various systems the company operated at the time. Doing so in systems with weak controls, including (News UK’s old and unstable email archive system, would have increased the risk of data loss and would have been bad practice.”

News UK said that before the mass email deletion in 2011, the company learned that someone was trying to steal confidential data from its CEO Rebekah Brooks.

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To date, News UK has not provided any evidence to substantiate the concern or shed light on the source. Lewis later became editor and managing director of Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal in the USA for six years.

The intense investigation into Lewis’ journalistic past casts a shadow over his brief tenure at the helm of the postas well as revelations that he pressured NPR and his own former editor-in-chief not to report on developments in the ongoing hacking cases. Lewis has appointed half a dozen former colleagues to prominent positions at the post. His successor as editor-in-chief of postTelegraph deputy editor Robert Winnett, withdrew before reaching Washington.

Tasked with assisting police investigations

Lewis joined News UK in September 2010. Early the following year he was one of a handful of the company’s senior executives tasked with dealing with the escalating scandal surrounding the tabloid newspapers’ intrusion into mobile phone voicemails and illegal acquisition of confidential data of the people they reported on.

As investigative journalist Nick Davies wrote, Murdoch met with Brooks in London on January 24. That evening, Paul Cheesbrough, News UK’s technical director, sent Brooks an email saying that he and Lewis had only learned of the alleged plot with Brown that same day. Lewis was copied on the email, which was produced in court today.

“He didn’t give us any further details,” Cheesbrough said of the person who warned him, “other than that his informant was a trusted police source and that he indicated that the source had recently spoken to Watson.”

If the allegation against Brown and Watson is fabricated, it would be a brazen act of jiu-jitsu. Both men say they were victims of phone hacking by the Murdoch tabloid, although Brown has not filed a lawsuit and the claim has not been verified.

In early February 2011, Lewis Cheesbrough sent an email saying that a company lawyer had given the “green light” for the “email migration.” Mass deletions soon followed, despite News UK being investigated by police and being instructed to keep all such material. Brooks’ computer files were also kept away from Scotland Yard.

Cheesbrough is currently a top executive at Murdoch’s Fox Corp. in New York City. A Fox Corp. spokesman declined to comment to News UK.

Accusation of industrial espionage to protect a deal

Both Watson and former business secretary Vince Cable accuse News UK of illegally invading their privacy to advance its corporate interests. News UK denies this.

Watson was one of the leading critics of the Murdoch press. Cable, famously skeptical of Murdoch, had to decide whether the Murdochs could take full control of broadcasting giant Sky. They claim the Murdochs hacked government officials to learn their political strategies, to stop Watson from criticising them during ongoing parliamentary inquiries, and to gain information about what Cable was doing about Sky.

Her trial lawyer, David Sherborne, also accused Lewis of violating Cable’s privacy by secretly recording private remarks by journalists for the rival telegraphwhich Lewis edited.

The audio was posted publicly, not by the telegraph but by Robert Peston, a leading BBC journalist at the time who was a close friend of Lewis.

Lewis has repeatedly declined to comment on whether he was a source of the audio recording, including before a judicial investigation.

The release of the audio – in which Cable said he had “declared war” on Murdoch – sparked a fierce backlash. He was removed from his role as auditor of the $15 billion Sky deal. The job was given to a cabinet minister who was considered a friend of Rupert Murdoch’s son James, who was then overseeing his UK holdings. News UK denies that Lewis leaked the video to force Cable out of his regulatory role.

When public outrage over the hacking scandal erupted in July 2011, the Murdochs closed their Sunday tabloid News of the World and withdrew their bid to take over Sky completely. Years later, after another attempt failed, they sold their 40 percent stake to Comcast.