Will Lewis, the Washington Submit writer, suggested Boris Johnson and senior officers at 10 Downing Avenue to “clear up” their telephones within the midst of a Covid-era political scandal, in keeping with claims by three individuals accustomed to the operations inside No 10 on the time.
The recommendation is alleged to have been given in December 2021 and January 2022 as prime officers have been underneath scrutiny for potential violations of pandemic restrictions, a scandal which was referred to as “Partygate”.
The claims recommend Lewis’s recommendation contradicted an e mail despatched to employees at No 10 in December 2021 which instructed them to not destroy any materials that could possibly be related to an investigation into the flagrant breaking of Covid lockdown guidelines by Johnson and officers who labored for him.
Sources stated they understood they have been being suggested to take away pictures and messages from their telephones that could possibly be damaging in any investigations.
Lewis, the sources alleged, made a number of the requests personally as he was finishing up work as an off-the-cuff 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 have been main an effort – codenamed Operation Save Massive Canine – that attempted however in the end did not 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 coated 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 stated: “This story is categorically unfaithful.”
A spokesperson for Johnson instructed the Guardian: “This story is unfaithful.”
Lewis, 55, was appointed writer of the Washington Submit in November 2023. His future is trying unsure, nonetheless, after a sequence of damaging tales in US media shops, together with the Washington Submit, about his journalistic file and alleged efforts to kill damaging tales about him.
A current story within the New York Instances reported allegations that Lewis and Robert Winnett, a former colleague of Lewis’s within the UK who was just lately appointed to run the newsroom as govt editor, used “fraudulently obtained cellphone and firm information in newspaper articles” after they labored as journalists in London twenty years in the past. The article cited a former colleague, the printed account of a non-public investigator and a New York Instances evaluation of newspaper archives. Neither Lewis nor Winnett responded to questions by the New York Instances.
In its personal article, the Washington Submit claimed that Winnett used materials from a so-called “blagger” who obtained the data utilizing deception whereas working as a journalist on the Sunday Instances throughout the 2000s.
Winnett didn’t reply to questions from the Submit. The Sunday Instances stated in response to this and former reviews that it “strongly rejected” accusations it had “retained or commissioned any particular person to behave illegally”.
Whereas Lewis’s journalistic file 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 12 months for the weekly column, and described this cost as “rooster feed”. It was his second wage to his “day job” of mayor of London, for which he was paid £140,000.
Lewis’s choice to affix Johnson as an off-the-cuff adviser adopted his April 2020 departure from Dow Jones, the place he served as writer of the Wall Avenue Journal.
The adviser position was unpaid, in keeping with reviews, and got here at an more and more determined political second for Johnson.
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The then prime minister was dealing with large strain from the general public and his personal political social gathering over his information of partying throughout lockdowns inside No 10. The UK’s most senior civil servant, Simon Case, stepped down from his position investigating lockdown-breaking events inside Downing Avenue 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 Massive Canine, so referred to as as a result of Johnson referred to himself as Massive Canine and his principal personal secretary, civil servant Martin Reynolds, as a “loyal labrador”, reportedly concerned plans to fireplace high-profile figures inside No 10 that could possibly be blamed for Johnson’s political difficulties.
The operation and allegations that strain was being placed on employees to delete proof of lockdown-busting events have been first reported in January 2022.
Sources declare that they have been instructed to “clear up” their telephones of pictures 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 information 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, stated Lewis made a few of these requests to wash up telephones personally.
The allegations by the sources recommend that Lewis’s recommendation contradicted an e mail despatched in December 2021 that instructed employees to not destroy any supplies that could possibly 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 common throughout the pandemic, {that a} sequence of WhatsApp messages with Johnson had mysteriously disappeared from her cellphone. She instructed the inquiry she seen messages have been lacking in Might 2021 and that she had tried to repeatedly elevate the difficulty with No 10. Johnson himself gave proof that about 5,000 WhatsApp messages from his outdated cellphone, 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 cellphone.
Lewis has individually confronted accusations in court docket proceedings in Britain that he helped lead a cover-up of legal exercise by his former employer, Information Corp, wherein tens of millions of probably damaging emails have been deleted that would 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 stated in response to reviews 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 instances. It has additionally stated the Solar doesn’t settle for legal responsibility or make any admissions within the disputed claims nonetheless going by 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 legal costs towards 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 strain on Sally Buzbee, the outgoing govt editor on the Washington Submit, over the paper’s protection of the cover-up allegations, in keeping with reviews within the New York Instances and NPR. A spokesperson stated in a press release: “William didn’t strain Ms Buzbee from publishing any tales throughout her tenure on the Submit, together with the tales she introduced as much as him. To recommend in any other case is totally false.”
