Joseph Muscat confirmed that nobody should believe a word he says. He was caught contradicting himself live. Faced with evidence of his inconsistency, Muscat flew into a rage.
“I can take you anytime, any day, anywhere,” Muscat challenged the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
Muscat testified that he found out about Konrad Mizzi’s secret financial structures “when it emerged in the public domain”. But on 24 February 2016, Muscat told the press he got to know from Mizzi’s draft declaration of assets, which only he had seen.
PN MP Robert Cutajar picked up Muscat’s contradictions and challenged him. He confronted Muscat with the 2016 Times article in which a video clip shows Muscat stating the exact opposite of what he’d just testified before the committee.
That video clip is precious. Journalists challenged Muscat about Mizzi’s secret financial structures. Clearly annoyed, Muscat deflected the question. “We are a Party for everyone. The Labour Party is the party of work, workers, employees, middle class, everybody, pensioners, youths…” he had said.
When pressed, he leapt to Mizzi’s defence. “The fact that a politician declares he will be keeping his assets in a trust is not a problem. It would be a problem if, like Austin Gatt, he had a Swiss account and forgot to declare it”.
The journalist wasn’t put off: “Doesn’t it worry you that your second-in-command, who controls all of Malta’s multi-million projects, Electrogas, the hospitals, sets up a company in a secretive jurisdiction?”.
“If he declares it, I have no problem,” Muscat retorted.
The million-dollar question followed. “When did you find out?”
Muscat’s furrow deepened. His forehead veins bulged prominently. He froze. “I found out about it around… (long pause)… some weeks ago when I saw the draft of his declaration of assets that will be tabled next March”.
We’d seen those bulging veins, that deep furrow before. It was in November 2019, in the midst of Muscat’s catastrophic implosion. Jacob Borg asked Muscat when he’d last met Yorgen Fenech. That was caught on video too.
Muscat looked up at the sky, paused for what felt like an eternity and then messed up badly. “One year ago, I think… but I’m not sure… or two years ago. What’s today? Where are we? We are… what? November, November. I think one year ago. I meet people from… all businesses (shrugs) I meet everybody.” Sheer panic.
Of course, Muscat’s version was false. He’d met Yorgen Fenech in February at Muscat’s exclusive birthday party at Girgenti.
That same panic was visible on Muscat’s face as Robert Cutajar exposed the falsity of Muscat’s testimony at the Public Accounts Committee on 27 June.
Muscat backtracked frantically. He blamed the passage of time, that he wasn’t prepared for those questions and that his memory was failing him. Finally, he admitted that what he told the committee was false. “If I made a mistake today, I’ll state I made a mistake, if my memory isn’t failing me… if I made a mistake in that date (sic), I’m sorry”.
Muscat wasn’t being asked what he ate for breakfast. He was asked about the most calamitous event in his premiership – the Panama Papers’ Konrad Mizzi revelations. That single event was the beginning of the end for Muscat.
That event must be etched indelibly in his mind. It crushed Muscat’s dream of a top EU post. It shattered his illusion of invincibility. It drove him out of office in disgrace.
Muscat’s inflated ego led him to believe he could outsmart the whole nation forever. He thought himself too clever to get caught. When you lie as profusely as Muscat, it’s difficult to keep track of your lies. It’s only a matter of time before you start making the mistakes he made live at the parliamentary committee.
Muscat is unravelling his own carefully spun tales. Those who tell the truth don’t struggle to remember what they’ve said. You don’t need to look at the sky and pause, desperately trying to recall your lies from years before.
There are only two options left for even the most diehard of Muscat’s fans. The first is to accept Muscat is a serial liar. That he lied when he said he knew about Mizzi’s Trust from his draft assets declaration, or he lied when he stated he found out when the story surfaced.
The second option is to continue believing Muscat is an honest, sincere gentleman, that Muscat is not a liar, but that at the tender age of 49, he’s completely forgotten some of the most crucial events from just seven years earlier. You’d have to believe Muscat’s memory is fading.
And that’s serious. It means none of his testimony can be relied on – whether at the PAC or in court during ongoing investigations and those that will inevitably follow. Anything he says to judges and magistrates must be discarded. It’s worthless.
It also has implications for those rushing to recruit him for his “valuable consultancy”. The man’s memory is so bad he’s messing up. Would you trust him with important decisions for your company? If you want to wreck your brand, employ Muscat, the man who wrecked everything – his premiership, his Party, and his country.
No wonder his own Party won’t touch him with a barge pole. He’s relegated to cranky monologues from his backyard or potty interviews with Manuel Cuschieri on Smash TV.
Muscat’s memory isn’t fading. He remembered precisely when Brian Tonna’s Nexia BT completed his income tax returns – between 2004 and 2008. Muscat clearly remembered nominating Lara Boffa to sit on the Electrogas board. Muscat’s memory is crystal clear. It’s his truth-telling that’s deficient.
His lies are catching up with him. That’s why he’s so angry. His serenity has evaporated.
It’s only his deep furrow, his bulging veins and his flashes of temper that we see. The parrot consultant yelled, “I am not here to be your parrot”. “I can take you anytime, any day, anywhere,” he threatened.
Lying took him to the top. Now it’s taking him to the bottom.
Daphne Caruana Galizia always linked the depth of his farrow to how big was his lie. She was always right.
Ll-akbar halliel,giddieb u korrott li qatt rat Malta.
Amazing true article
“Faced with evidence of his inconsistency, Muscat flew into a rage.”
Yes, just like the narcisist would.
A serial liar confronted by the Truth and hopelessly outflanked by his previous public statements, best described as a “dead man walking” must be monitoring those flights to Dubai on a daily basis. Corradino calls and he knows it. Time to get his passport surrendered and signing the bail book daily. Well done Kevin.
“It’s only his deep furrow, his bulging veins and his flashes of temper that we see. The parrot consultant yelled, “I am not here to be your parrot”. “I can take you anytime, any day, anywhere,” he threatened. Lying took him to the top. Now it’s taking him to the bottom.”
ECCELLENTI KEVIN CASSAR.
If you stick to the truth you do not have to have a good memory. But if you lie you will be caught out.
The emperor had no clothes after all.
Il-giddieb għomru qasir.
Never heard of a man in my lifetime who had so much and threw it all away. Maybe, he was just a pawn after all ?
Though I am no fan of his I am sorry for the man who could have done good for our country but chose the path he did and disgraced it and himself instead..
I feel sorry for our country, for us and our children’s future not for a lying scoundrel such as the disgraced former PM. Shame on him and on all who still support him.
Ma stajtx tpingih ahjar min hekk lil dal giddieb, prosit Kevin. Jien ilni nghid li dal giddieb wiccu u sormu listes u ma jafx jisthi. Sfortunatament f idejh ghandu l ispaga li jcaqlaq u imexxi lil Bertu. Dal puppaz Bertu qed jmexxi lil poplu Malti ghal ghan wiehed li jkompli jostor u jahbi l hmieg ta dal giddieb. Poplu Malti qum mir raqda li tinsab fiha ghax diga sar hafna hin u ghad jidispjacik. Uliedek poplu Malti fil futur qrib jisthu jghidu li huma Maltin.
Fejni dik l ghajta Malta l ewwel u qabel kollox
When a politician lies to a committee , it isn’t a simple of saying sorry. It is a matter of accepting responsibility for misguiding people.
THE DISGRACED ONE IS LIKE A CORNERED RAT TRYING
TO SAVE HIS SKIN BUT NO ONE BELIEVES HIM, AN
OUTCAST.
No matter what you say, Dr. Muscat will always remain Invictus especialy to the Nationalist Party
Poor guy, he is the victim of dementia!! Have pity for him.
““I can take you anytime, any day, anywhere,” Muscat challenged the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.” Is this not a direct threat? Why have the police not taken any action on this scumbag?
I am a little puzzled by all this cheering about Muscat’s rapid dive to irrelevance, supposed to be the product of his three appearances before the PAC. Puzzled because though he did appear to lose his temper, that fact did not yield any turning of the screw on him. The reason for that I would argue has been the persistence of the PAC chair Darren Carabott in trying to nail Muscat down using the misdeeds of his cronies. Against that approach Muscat has built a high wall of non-involvement, no inside knowledge and a claimed reliance on public sources of information. All lies it may be –indeed it is — but it cannot really be breached. On the other hand, in his first PAC session Muscat made a number of statements on which he could have been hammered. The generous Electrogas had handed to Enemalta the sum of euro 36 million from an undefined ”day one” to enable Enemalta to lower its charges. Nobody had ever mentioned that and ”day one” could not have been the actual date on which Enemalta did lower its charges — 31st March 2014 — well before the Electrogas contract was awarded. Not to mention that concurrently there was a shortening of the billing period from 4 months to 2 months, which meant that the much vaunted 25% cut came down to some 15%.
There was more: Muscat said that Enemalta was currently paying Electrogas euro 2 million annually ”in excise”. What was that supposed to mean? The last time we heard of ”excise” it was in the context of that generous deed which Konrad Mizzi had persuaded Muscat to go in for: a waiver of euro 40 million which Electrogas owed to the Customs as excise duty on the importation of LNG. Remember the SOCAR person on the Electrogas Board was purchasing the LNG from the Gulf at current market prices and selling it to Electrogas at a fixed price. Until around mid-2020 this meant that this SOCAR person was making a killing from this ”deal”. Where was the money going? And Electrogas had to pay for the transport of LNG to the Marsaxlokk tanker and Customs Duty as importer. But did that Customs duty payment continue after the 2017 ”amnesty”? Or was Enemalta — that’s us — made to pay it instead, the euro 2 million annual ”excise” mentioned so flippantly by Joseph Muscat? Muscat should have been squeezed on these points which concerned his own actions and words, and not about what his cronies were saying to each other in their midnight drinking bouts.