Hacked Off In The UK, Part 8

Been a few weeks since a solid update on the Murdoch empire's phone hacking scandal, but the latest is a doozy: several new letters involving News Corp staff and phone hacking were sent to high ups, including Rupert Murdoch's son James.

The most incendiary of the letters, dating from 2007, was written by Clive Goodman, the paper's former royal editor, who was once close friends with Coulson. The then NoW editor fired Goodman when he pleaded guilty four years ago to hacking into mobile phones belonging to members of the royal household.

Goodman mounted an appeal against his dismissal. In a letter written in March 2007, and handed to MPs by the law firm Harbottle & Lewis – beware a lawyer scorned – Goodman claimed Coulson was aware that phone hacking took place. He said the practice had been openly discussed in editorial conference until Coulson himself barred those who attended from mentioning it.

As smoking guns go, this one is still hot: there is a devastating line in every paragraph. For years, News International has insisted it had one rotten apple in the newsroom: Goodman. Now it appears that all along it has been sitting on a letter which explicitly claims that the entire newsroom was rotten. The letter also alleges that Crone and Coulson offered Goodman his job back if he did not implicate the paper or its staff in his mitigation plea. It is true that Goodman may be a man with an axe to grind, but News International, interestingly, did not try to claim that he could not be trusted.

Even more tellingly, a second copy of the Goodman letter, sent to the committee by News International itself, was censored by the company so that Goodman's reference to discussion about hacking in editorial conference was removed.

Goodman's claims, if true, undermine repeated denials from Coulson, who told the same MPs in 2009 that he was not aware of the practice.

So if these letters are true, News Corp's top brass knew about the phone hacking, knew it was widespread at News of the World, and knew about it for several years.  All three combined means Rupert and James Murdoch were more or less completely lying to the British parliament when they testified in front of them last month.

In other words, the Murdochs are in serious trouble.  This was the inevitable other shoe dropping, and now we'll see just how much Britain will do about it.  And let's not forget possible charges against News Corp for their US operations, either.

It's about to get ugly.