- Government resists handover: Efforts to prevent disclosing Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages from the pandemic
- Missing deadline: COVID investigation yet to receive Johnson’s WhatsApp messages despite crucial deadline passing
- Retrieving information: Johnson’s old phone still in his possession as government assists in secure data retrieval
Johnson said he would hand over his pandemic WhatsApp chats, but the administration sought to keep them.
Despite a deadline, the COVID inquiry has not received Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp chats from before May 2021.
The government had until Monday at 4:00 p.m. to comply with a High Court order to hand over the unredacted notebooks, diaries, and WhatsApp messages of the former prime minister from his tenure in Downing Street.
According to the PA news agency, however, Mr. Johnson’s old phone containing the communications is still in his possession as government officials assist him in attempting to retrieve information from the device in a secure manner.
After discovering that the number had been freely available for approximately 15 years. He was instructed to cease using it while in office.
It is likely to contain information and messages regarding the pandemic, specifically the 2020 mandate for three national lockdowns.
After failing to contain COVID-19, Downing Street said the probe had received “all necessary materials” on Monday.
The government had argued that Baroness Heather Hallett’s request was “unambiguously irrelevant.”
The argument, however, was rejected by Lord Justice Dingemans and Mr. Justice Garnham, who stated that even though the order to provide documents would produce “some irrelevant documents,” this did not imply that the power “cannot be exercised lawfully.”
In addition, they determined that Lady Hallett should be able to inspect the documents to determine whether or not they are useful and return those that are “obviously irrelevant.”
Mr. Johnson informed Lady Hallett last month that he would “like” to provide the investigation with the old phone’s messages.
He may have asked the Cabinet Office for security and technical assistance to examine its contents without compromising security.
