'Netanyahu doesn't understand credit cards'
Former Finance Ministry director-general Leiter claims no wrongdoing after State Comptroller report points to him using personal credit card to help Netanyahu finance trips.
Yechiel Leiter, who served as the Head of the Prime Minister's Bureau in 2005 and formerly served as the Finance Ministry's director-general, defended his decision to pay $2,800 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's son's trip to England using his own credit card, as revealed in the State Comptroller's report released on Tuesday afternoon.
Leiter, who served under Netanyahu during his tenure as finance minister between the years 2003-2005, rejected the allegations out of hand, saying "I don’t know about today, but during that time (Netanyahu) didn't have a credit card. Even today, there are writers who write by hand and don't use a laptop. Netanyahu doesn't understand credit cards, and you can't blame him for that."
"I sleep well, I'm in South America, what do you want with a credit card from ten years ago?" he said.
A report written by retired judge Yosef Shapira found that the prime minister and his family's trips abroad were funded by foreign donors, donations which may have contravened the law. Leiter said at first that he does not remember the incident and payment, and that "it is very surprising that because of the size of the amount."
Leiter went on to change his story, responding to what was written in the report’s draft by explaining that he had used his own credit card to pay for any added expenses made during Netanyahu’s oversea trips or those made by his family members, and that Netanyahu had reimbursed him later.
During a hearing in January, Netanyahu told the state comptroller that Leiter was reimbursed in a timely fashion after each and every payment he had made. In his report, the comptroller made a note of the fact that a state employee subordinate to a minister had paid for his and his family’s expenses, “despite it not being an emergency.”
When asked whether Netanyahu had taken advantage of him during his tenure as finance minister, Leiter responded in the negative. “No one takes advantage of me. I am grateful for the time we had working together; I really enjoyed myself, learned a lot, contributed whatever I could, and then went home. Things tend to get extremely intense before trips, especially regarding whether the kids will come or not. Yair and Avner were around 12-13 at the time. I definitely remember when someone doesn’t pay me back; I keep a grudge over that kind of thing. I don’t remember how much or when he paid me, but I’m sure he did.”
Leiter added that “sometimes the kids would come with them at the last minute, because there was no place for them to be. On these I occasions I would say to myself something like, ‘Okay, first we need to reserve the plane tickets,' so I’ll just give my (credit card) number and he’ll pay me later.
"Honestly, what’s the big deal? People have made such a fuss over it. Was I made the Israeli ambassador the UN for looking after his kids? No, I wasn’t. I barely got his support during the primaries, so what does everyone want from me? I’m innocent and don’t deal with nonsense like that.”
