Watch this again: 26th February last year

This website had just broken the news that Konrad Mizzi has a secret company in Panama, sheltered by a trust in New Zealand. Despite that, and with the news still breaking, Mizzi had been elected deputy leader of the Labour Party the previous night, after Toni Abela had been persuaded out of the post and the rules were changed to allow a member of parliament to become deputy leader for party affairs.

The following morning, a scrum of journalists surrounded Muscat as he tried to leave the building after a meeting. It is important and very useful to watch this video a year later, knowing what we do now, and what we have learned since that day.

On 26th February last year, we did not yet know that Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, had set up the exact same structure in Panama and New Zealand in concert with Mizzi. We found that out a couple of weeks later. But look how Muscat reacts to the journalist Mario Frendo when he mentions Schembri – he threatens him. Frendo did not know about Schembri’s company at that point; he mentioned Schembri in a different context. It would be more than a month before the Panama Papers broke worldwide.

Watch Muscat’s physical responses, his verbal prevarication, his look of awkwardness and embarrassment mixed with lashing out (Austin Gatt, hate bloggers, libel).

Then watch how he makes a mistake: in his eagerness to cover up for Konrad Mizzi (and in turn, himself), he reveals that he knows all the details about the set-up, not because Mizzi told him – because no prime minister would defend a minister accused of cheating on the basis of what he told him – but because he was in it too and fully apprised of what was going on.

The only thing he said firmly and with conviction was: “There is no account.” And he wasn’t lying: at that stage, there was no bank account. They were still trying to get one when the story broke.

A prime minister who was relying merely on what his minister had told him would not say, “There is no account” as though he himself is involved as knows the facts for sure. He would say, “Minister X assures me there is no account. There will, of course, be a full investigation.” But Muscat said firmly there was no account long before he announced that ‘audit’.

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