I’m watching Konrad Mizzi being interviewed on TVM’s Dissett as I write this, and his performance is abysmal.

So is that of Reno Bugeja, the man interviewing him. The Minister for Energy and Health looks and sounds like a man who doesn’t quite understand that there is a noose round his neck and that it is tightening fast. His obfuscations, excuses and contradictory explanations are confused, but they are not confusing public opinion. On the contrary, they are making for greater clarity in the public’s mind. He doesn’t sound like somebody any person of even the most basic intelligence would believe. And it is immediately apparent, from what his party colleagues have said and haven’t said, even from their demeanour, that they don’t believe him either and that they feel angry and betrayed but simply won’t act on it because that is how they are.

As for Reno Bugeja, what can I say? Of all the lawyers in Malta, who did he choose to interview on the subject of trusts, but Ramona Frendo, who is not a specialist in financial services and who, worse still, featured prominently in the Labour Party’s general election campaign, including a cameo appearance in the party’s main campaign video, Malta Tagħna Lkoll. Even she, however, had a difficult time getting out of it, and her rapid speech and senseless explanation showed that she would much, much rather not be defending him or making excuses on his behalf.

And that’s right – trusts, they talked about trusts, when the real issue here is a top-secret company in the top-secret jurisdiction of Panama. The trust is there only to shelter the Panama company and for no other reason. The crux of the matter is the Panama company, not the trust, because it is the Panama company which will be receiving monies, and not the trust. Or, to use the chosen terminology of the Health and Energy Minister himself, it is the Panama company which will be “populated with his assets”.

So far, the show is a whitewash. I have no reason to believe that the rest of it will be any different. The clue is that Reno Bugeja has just handed him a cartoon as a gift and they had a nice little laugh about it. Sic transit the public broadcaster – not that it was ever glorious.

The main evidence of Reno Bugeja’s bad faith and his collusion with the government is the clip interview with Frank Psaila of the Nationalist Party, which he has just aired. The operative word here is ‘clip’. Psaila was made to sound as though he was taking credit for the Panamagate story, made to sound as though the Nationalist Party had the information about Konrad Mizzi and, rather than “keeping it for the opportune moment as political strategy” decided to release it now because that is the responsible thing to do.

There and then I rang up Frank Psaila’s colleagues and asked what on earth he was thinking of, and how dare he lay claim to my story on behalf of the Nationalist Party. I was beyond furious. Within minutes Psaila rang back and he was furious himself. Reno Bugeja had edited his words out of a much longer interview to make it sound as though he said what the Labour Party and the General Workers Union press are now claiming, the message they’re pushing: that the Nationalist Party had the information on Konrad Mizzi and released it through me.

Reno, you are beyond disgusting. Every last shred of professional respect I had for you is gone. The Nationalist Party did not have the information. In fact, the Nationalist Party did not even believe the story when I first broke it. It was only when the government began running scared, and when Konrad Mizzi began releasing partial information himself through Malta Today, only to be exposed as a liar through new information on my website, that the Nationalist Party realised that I am in possession of the hard facts, of incontrovertible evidence. And then it began to speak. It had no choice but to speak because the story was gaining momentum, spreading like wildfire, the sole topic of conversation everywhere.

Panamagate isn’t going away. Remember that Watergate dragged on for two years, but the end of Nixon was nonetheless inevitable.

www.daphnecaruanagalizia.com