By Alec Hogg
Uncovering of the scandalous R2bn VBS mutual bank scandal can be tracked back to “squealer’s protection” legislation copied from the US. After it had been explained to them they couldn’t be criminally prosecuted for anything confessed, half a dozen key VBS witnesses completely changed their previously sworn statements, thus opening that can of wrigglies.
But even those American students of the human condition who devised this innovative law would be staggered at the huge fish it has just netted. In a New York court yesterday, US president Donald Trump’s long time lawyer and confidante Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to an astonishing nine pages of lies he told the US Congress while attempting to protect his boss.
Cohen’s pork pies range from denying payments to the married property developer’s X-rated movie mistress through to their close business ties with Russian president Putin’s business lieutenants including billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. Cohen’s lies covered up serious electoral abuses perpetrated in the weeks ahead of 2016’s vote that got his boss into the White House.
On a happier note, my latest BN Confidential on Biznews Premium explains why South Africans shouldn’t allow small town biases to blinker them from a Naspers share price repeat from Discovery. The evidence suggests Adrian Gore’s group passed a global tipping point this week. Exponential growth is now a very real possibility.
