Netanyahu, Visiting U.S., Is Stalked by Legal Troubles at Home<br />The police were reported to have surprised Mrs. Netanyahu by questioning her as a suspect, rather than just taking her testimony as a witness,<br />and to have set up an elaborate six-way interrogation, questioning other main suspects, including Mr. Hefetz; Shaul Elovitch, the owner of Bezeq and a friend of Mr. Netanyahu’s; and his wife Iris, a friend of Mrs. Netanyahu’s, in separate rooms and feeding information to investigators.<br />The latest government witness is Nir Hefetz, a former journalist who served as chief spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu from 2009 to 2011,<br />and later returned to work as the Netanyahu family’s media adviser, a post he held until October 2017.<br />Mr. Hefetz also has been implicated in another case, involving allegations<br />that he sought, through an intermediary, to bribe a judge into dropping a separate criminal investigation involving the misuse of public funds by Mrs. Netanyahu.<br />The deal came after days of feverish speculation in Israel<br />that Mr. Netanyahu, beleaguered by police investigations and facing possible bribery charges, might call a snap election in hopes of a quick validation of public support.<br />He signed a deal with the authorities, the police said Monday,<br />that is likely to yield damning evidence in at least one bribery case in which Mr. Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are suspects, and possibly others.<br />The third state witness, Ari Harow, Mr. Netanyahu’s former chief of staff<br />and once one of his closest confidants, signed a deal with the police seven months ago and was expected to provide incriminating evidence in two other graft cases involving illicit gifts for favors and back-room dealings with a local newspaper magnate in another bid for favorable press coverage.<br />On Friday, Mr. and Mrs. Netanyahu were questioned for hours about the case in separate locations — he in the official<br />prime minister’s residence, she at the headquarters of the fraud investigations unit in central Israel.
