New scandal rocks Netanyahu's office: Chief of Staff accused of blackmailing IDF officer

As of today, Israeli media reports that the senior official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office who allegedly used a video to blackmail an IDF officer is his chief of staff Tzachi Braverman.

Braverman is accused of obtaining “sensitive footage” of the official, who previously worked in the prime minister's office and was apparently in a relationship with one of the staffers there.

On Friday, Israel's Channel 13 reported that senior officials in the prime minister's office approached the aide and asked her to hand over her cellphone for investigation, saying she was suspected of leaking information. They used this tactic to uncover correspondence between the employee and the senior IDF officer.

A few months ago, a complaint was sent to IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi making a serious allegation that someone in the Prime Minister's Office allegedly possessed confidential documents belonging to the IDF officer.

Braverman issued a statement Sunday morning after his name was published in the news, linking him to the affair and strongly denying the claims.

“The serious allegation that I had an official's documents or that I was trying to extort someone is false, as is Michael Shemesh's defamatory report,” Braverman said. “This is a lie from start to finish designed to harm me and the Prime Minister’s Office in the middle of war.”

Braverman also sent a warning letter to Israeli journalist Michael Shemesh, who first published his name after the “false reports.”

Multiple senior sources familiar with the details of the incident told Channel 13 News, “Netanyahu's office is behaving like a criminal organization.”

According to reports in Hebrew media, police investigators arrived at the Prime Minister's Office on Saturday evening, November 2, to investigate activities there and confiscated several records. There were reportedly attempts to disrupt minutes related to meeting minutes discussing events before and after October 7 at the Prime Minister's Office.

According to a report in Ynet, early in the war the Prime Minister's Office ordered the deletion of all war cabinet records, although all cabinet meetings and secret deliberations were required to be recorded.

Haaretz also reported earlier this year that several classified documents related to October 7 preparations were removed from the government secretariat. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered the head of the National Security Council, Tzachi Hanegbi, to return the minutes because she said they were not properly removed.

In addition to attempts to edit or destroy minutes related to the October 7 massacre, Ynet News also reported that attempts were made to edit minutes of meetings related to the International Court of Justice lawsuit against Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant edit.

According to Israel Hayom political analyst Amir Ettinger, shortly after the shock of the October 7 Hamas massacre, Netanyahu's office decided to begin searching for evidence that could be used to shift responsibility for the security failure to the IDF and the Israeli security service push (Shin Bet).

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet been personally linked to any of the scandals, political commentators in the Israeli press have questioned why so many Scandals happened in his office.

The Prime Minister's Office responded to claims about the destruction or removal of protocols, calling it “a complete lie, information that never existed and was not created.”

“Anyone familiar with the work processes knows that such an incident is not possible,” the office said. “All conversations are legally recorded and transcribed, therefore their content cannot be changed.”

The special police unit Lahav 433, similar to the FBI, only confirmed to Ynet News that “a number of open investigative measures were carried out.”

Regarding the decision to launch an investigation into officials in the office, the statement said: “This is an unprecedented witch hunt against the Prime Minister's Office in the midst of a war.”

The office also questioned why “the only two investigations launched were against the Prime Minister's Office and not against the mass traitors, who were not under investigation and who caused enormous damage to the abductees and to Israel's security.”