Veteran TV interviewer named in ‘black ledger’ probe
TV host Larry King accepted US$225,000 to interview Ukraine’s pro-Russian prime minister, according to a politician investigating a ‘‘black ledger’’ detailing alleged secret payments to the United States from Ukraine’s former ruling party.
King flew to Kiev in November 2011 to interview Ukraine’s then prime minister Mykola Azarov, a key figure in the government of President Viktor Yanukovych, whom Ukrainian prosecutors accuse of massive corruption.
Weeks before the interview, Yanukovych had jailed his main political opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko. After the interview, King lavished praise on Azarov, describing him in flattering terms as a ‘‘straightforward and honest person with a deep knowledge of world affairs’’.
During the encounter, King asked Azarov a series of soft questions, including: ‘‘What do you like most about your job?’’ He mentioned Tymoshenko just once, asking Azarov: ‘‘Do you have any sympathy for her?’’ The latter replied: ‘‘Of course.’’
Yesterday Serhiy Leshchenko, a Ukrainian MP and investigative journalist, presented fresh details from a ‘‘black ledger’’ belonging to Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. It includes records of US$12.7 million in payments allegedly designated for Paul Manafort, then Yanukovych’s chief consultant and election strategist and who yesterday resigned as Donald Trump’s campaign manager.
Leshchenko said the records documented a US$225,000 payment earmarked for King in return for doing the Azarov interview, which was broadcast by Ukraine’s pro-government national TV station.
King, who left CNN in 2010 and has gone on to work for Russia Today, was not immediately available for comment. Manafort has dismissed claims that he received ‘‘black ledger’’ cash payments as ‘‘unfounded, silly and nonsensical’’.
The alleged King payment appears to be part of a wider strategy by the then ruling Party of Regions to influence US opinion and to deflect criticism of Yanukovych’s increasingly authoritarian behaviour. ‘‘National Intelligence agencies were set up after World War II to protect the homeland from foreign actors. But increasingly, they are surveiling home-grown threats.’’ So said Naveed Jamali, a former United States-Russia double agent and US military intelligence officer.
I talked to Jamali this week in light of the news that Prime Minister John Key is spearheading changes to New Zealand’s intelligence laws.
Key’s proposals are bringing the tension between privacy and security into sharp relief for many Kiwis. It’s a tension that Americans have been grappling with for years.
The proposed law changes – which are explained as attempts to increase transparency and oversight as well as increasing cooperation between spy agencies – are in fact very similar to the laws passed in the US after 9/11.
‘‘Intelligence agencies are very protective of their sources and their methods,’’ Jamali says. ‘‘And for that reason, they did not historically, or naturally, cooperate.’’
One big terrorist event on your home soil can change that thinking – as Americans have learned.
‘‘The USA has 17 different intelligence agencies that now report to one place: the Director of National Intelligence,’’ Jamali explains. ‘‘The goal of intelligence operations is to detect and neutralise a threat to the homeland.’’
And cooperation is central to achieving that goal. On that basis, Key’s proposals seem to make sense.
One example to contrast the level of security structures that Americans live under is the comparison between boarding a domestic flight at Tauranga airport and boarding a domestic flight at John F Kennedy airport in New York. I have done both, many times.
In Tauranga, it’s a fairly straightforward exercise. Get your boarding pass, show it to the Air New Zealand staffer, walk out on to the tarmac, board the plane.
At JFK, it goes something like this: get your boarding pass, and show your boarding pass and ID to airline staff to enter a security line. You must then show your boarding pass and ID again to Transportation Security Administration officials, then take off your shoes, belt and jacket, empty your pockets, place your hand luggage on a conveyor