Opinion: Still in transit, my dear?

“Only Joseph can’t speak,” Michelle Muscat said in a social media post uploaded immediately after her husband made history – the first former prime minister charged with money laundering, bribery, corruption, trading in influence, and setting up a criminal association.

Michelle Muscat was lying, of course, and not for the first time. The former prime minister’s wife is notorious for her elaborate lies.

Who could forget her most ludicrous fable of how she swam 14km in open rough sea at world record speed? That was five years ago.  Since then, it seems, she’s perfected her fabrication skills.

In her hysterical post, Michelle pushed one falsehood after another.  “The Attorney General decided that Joseph should be denied the right to speak,” she announced.

That was manifestly untrue because her husband spoke to the media on his way out of court, contributing some more falsehoods of his own.  “In truth,” he lied, “I have been hit with a gagging order.  From today, I cannot say anything.”

That was manifestly false, too, because the first thing he did when he got home was record a video of himself and upload that clip onto Facebook.  He falsely claimed he’d been gagged as he gabbed away.

He said, “I would have liked to comment about what took place and what didn’t take place on Tuesday, but I was banned from speaking”. Yet there he was, speaking to thousands on social media.

Things deteriorated further after that: “I have a lot of thoughts on how the Attorney General of an EU country could ask that somebody be denied his freedom of expression.”  More lies.

His video post confirmed the falsity of his claims. He added, “I will not comment further because of the court’s decision”.  But went on to comment further, informing the nation that he would be commenting even further.

“In the coming days and weeks, I will announce the next steps that need to be taken in the context of democracy and the rule of law.”

“Everyone can talk and lie about the famous inquiry (and about far more),” Muscat’s wife echoed. “They can go on (TV) programmes and invent stuff and say what they want.  No one wanted or tried to stop them – only Joseph can’t speak.”

What is she talking about? The man hasn’t stopped talking since he was charged.

“Who is he annoying when Joseph speaks?” Michelle asked, clearly referring to Robert Abela. “There are some who don’t want Joseph to keep communicating with the people.”

Joseph Muscat claims he’s not allowed to speak, but he’s attacked the Attorney General and another magistrate. His wife lapsed into the absurd.  “Now that Joseph cannot speak, the lies have increased,” she claimed.

“They are scandalised because we get up in the morning and keep working,” Michelle added. Maybe that’s another of her fabrications.

What work does Michelle Muscat do? Oh yes, she’s the chairperson of the Marigold Foundation. That involves being picked up by one of her two taxpayer-funded drivers in her taxpayer-funded car to collect more taxpayers’ money from government entities, most of which she spends on entertaining herself and her friends.

In 2022, Michelle Muscat’s Marigold Foundation received €169,000, mostly from Bank of Valletta and government entities.

She spent 66% of that money on promotional activities, including parties, The Shift revealed. A mere €54,000 went into donations to other NGOs, which should be Marigold’s primary role.

The annual mandatory documents submitted by the Foundation provided little to no information about who got those €54,000, where the rest of the money went, or how the foundation ran up a deficit of €12,000.

There is also no information about the cost of each event, who provided the catering for her parties, or how much they were paid.

Michelle Muscat is deviously bolstering her husband’s false narrative of victimhood while he says he’s been hit by a gagging order. None of this is true.

Firstly, there’s no gagging order as the Muscats falsely claim. Muscat can say whatever he likes, and he does.  Nobody’s stopping him, least of all the magistrate.

The only thing the magistrate has prohibited is for the accused’s lawyers to hand out any data from the proceedings to third parties and the accused from “making any public comments about any testimonies or evidence in the proceedings”.

And it’s not just Joseph, my dear. It’s the whole crowd charged with the crimes your husband faces. It’s not just him; it’s all of them.

And the only thing they cannot do is intimidate, humiliate, ridicule, bully or attack those witnesses who’ll be called by the prosecution to provide evidence to prove his guilt.

Of course, Joseph Muscat doesn’t need to bully and intimidate the prosecution himself.  He’s got his loyal poodle, Minister Jonathan Attard, to do it for him. The minister launched a frontal assault against the prosecutors employed in his own ministry.

Things couldn’t get weirder — the justice minister publicly attacks prosecutors from his own ministry for carrying out their duty to bring to justice his friend and former prime minister while also accusing the magistrate of “strategically leaking” information from the inquiry.

“The prosecution’s request for what has been publicly described as a gagging order… was, I believe, disproportionate, especially in the context of a magisterial inquiry characterised by strategic leaks,” the minister said.

What’s more shocking is that Prime Minister Robert Abela defended Attard’s attack on the prosecutors. “The minister’s comments do not interfere with the AG’s autonomy,” Abela said, adding that Attard’s criticism was “within the parameters of prudence”.

Abela’s comments surreptitiously reinforce Joseph and Michelle Muscat’s lie that Joseph has been gagged.  It consolidates the even bigger lie that Joseph is the victim of a political vendetta, the target of the evil establishment intent on destroying him for repeatedly beating them so soundly at the polls. And that Joseph did nothing wrong.

“I was more sorry than her own family,” Michelle had said about journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination. “Her family could go on to make her a saint… I will have to live with her lies”.

Even Labour die-hards are starting to realise it wasn’t Daphne who lied.