A week after Israeli police investigators handed its official recommendation to the attorney general that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu be indicted in two bribery and fraud cases, another matter was revealed: one that sees Netanyahu, through intermediaries, offering a judge the position of attorney general if she would derail a criminal investigation of Netanyahu’s wife, Sara. News of the latest Netanyahu legal quagmire came with the announcement that several of the PM’s close cohorts had been arrested along with officials of Bezeq, the nation’s largest telecommunications company. The new case becomes the third in which Netanyahu faces very real prospects for losing his office and even serving jail time. Two of those cases relate to efforts to use his position to provide favors in return for receiving positive media coverage – a virtual obsession with the PM whose professional and personal relationship with Israeli media has been stormy at best. The third alleges Netanyahu provided official favors in return for gifts from wealthy businessmen. As expected, the PM’s political rivals are clamoring for him to vacate the prime minister’s seat even though that would not be required until an indictment is handed down. That possibility became more real on Tuesday when the present Chief Justice of the Supreme Court told police that when the offer to the lower level judge was made, she was a regular judge at the time and the judge who was approached with the offer told her about it. What might be the final nail also came on Tuesday when a Netanyahu confidant, a former director-general of the communications ministry under Netanyahu, agreed to turn state’s evidence and incriminate the prime minister in exchange for a lighter sentence.
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