The short version
What happened today is very simple.
- Owen Glenn proved that he made a phone call to Winston Peters at 1.26 pm NZST on 14 December 2005. The call ended at 1.33 pm.
- At 1.40 pm on the same day – just seven minutes later – Brian Henry sent Owen Glenn the details of the bank account the $100,000 was paid into.
- A Paul Moroney swore an affidavit that Winston Peters and Owen Glenn did meet at Karaka in January 2006, that Owen Glenn told him of the donation to Peters, and that Peters thanked Owen Glenn for his help. Incidentially Paul Moroney is the brother of Labour MP Sue Moroney.
Anyone who thinks that somehow Winston Peters was not aware of the donation is not just naive or misguided, but fundamentally dishonest. The attempts by Labour to suggest that someone else may have answered Winston’s mobile phone, pretended to be Winston, arranged the $100,000 donation, passed the details onto Brian Henry – all without telling Winston – are so far fetched that journalists were having trouble not laughing out loud.
The big new information that got revealed is that Owen Glenn met with Mike Williams the day of the donation, sought his approval for the donation and is adamant he would not have made the donation without permission from Williams. It is almost inconceivable that Williams would not discuss such an issue with Helen Clark. We already knew she knew about the donation in February 2008 – she may in fact have known as early as December 2005. It will be impossible to prove what Williams told Clark, but regardless we do know that Mike Williams knew all about this from day one.
Whale Oil has the affidavits online.