The FBI has seized 80,000 potentially damning emails from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., giving the media titan worries on both sides of the Atlantic in the ongoing phone hacking scandal.
While Murdoch was in London on Thursday facing the fallout from the conviction of one of his former star editors, it was disclosed in the U.S. that the FBI took and shared the mountain of emails with British prosecutors.
The emails, all copied from servers at News Corp.’s Midtown headquarters, include messages Rebekah Brooks, Murdoch’s former protégé, sent up the chain of command during the height of the phone-hacking scandal, The Daily Beast reported.
The emails have been shared with British prosecutors, but they were not used as evidence in the trial of Brooks and former News of the World editor Andy Coulson.
It was not immediately clear what the emails say or what the FBI further intends to do with them.
Murdoch is juggling troubles in England and America as his company maneuvers to dodge corporate charges and keep the 83-year-old billionaire from being prosecuted himself.
He turned up in London to speak to his News UK staff in the wake of Tuesday’s stunning conviction of Coulson. Murdoch has yet to publicly address his former star editor’s conviction on phone-hacking charges. But he appears to have bigger problems to worry about.
Scotland Yard has advised him it wants to interview him “under caution” — a warning given to suspects.
British prosecutors appear to be working up a case for corporate charges to be brought against Murdoch’s company. Under section 79 of Britain’s Regulations and Investigatory Powers Acts, company directors can be brought to justice if evidence shows they consented or connived with the misdeeds of employees, or were negligent.
A corporate charge could be devastating for News Corp., which concluded in an in-house analysis that it could “kill the corporation” and put “46,000 jobs in jeopardy.”
In 2012, News Corp.’s general council, Gerson Zweifach, told British police and prosecutors if the company faces a corporate charge it risks losing its U.S. Federal Communications Commission licenses. The FCC licenses includes those for Fox News Channel, Fox Sports and Fox Broadcasting Co.
Murdoch also owns the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and 21st Century Fox studios.
Brooks, former chief executive of Murdoch’s News International and a former News of the World editor, was acquitted Tuesday on charges of phone hacking, bribery and obstruction of police.
She broke her silence Thursday, saying, “I am innocent of the crimes that I was charged with, and I feel vindicated by the unanimous verdicts.”
Coulson, Brooks’ former lover, faces up to two years in prison when he is sentenced.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron was rebuked by the hacking trial judge for publicly apologizing Tuesday for hiring Coulson as his communications director while the jury was still deliberating other charges against the journalist.
