Email sent by Gatekeeper to Powell
We briefly mentioned the injuction against the BBC reporting a story relating to the cash for honours inquiry at the weekend. The BBC are now reporting some of the details of the email, now that the injuction has been amended, and there are some familiar names mentioned..
The BBC can now say the e-mail that triggered the investigation into an alleged Downing Street cover-up was sent by Number 10 aide Ruth Turner. It was sent to Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, and concerned Labour’s chief fundraiser Lord Levy.
Update It might not actually be an email.. more below the fold.
In a Channel 4 News report earlier tonight, the reporter stated that he had been ‘guided’ to believe that the document referred to be the Attorney-General in his statement, part of which is included in this Guardian report, was not an email and that it might not have actually been sent.. although that latter distinction may explain why Ruth Turner and Jonathan Powell have retained separate legal counsel.
From the Guardian report
The attorney general’s office said: “The BBC and the attorney general today agreed to a variation of the injunction obtained on Friday concerning a particular document relating to the ‘cash for honours’ police investigation. In agreeing to this variation, the attorney general was not intending to indicate or confirm that any particular document was in fact sent or received.”
“We need another Sept 11th, so we can bury the bad news”
or,
“National security issues may save us from deserved prosecution, Nuremburg defense, we were following Tony’s (Blair) orders”
better still,
“Would Yates accept a K or a P to whitewash the enquiry”