The trials of a reasonable person

Tucker Carlson, divorce in Nkandla and coy consultants [View this email in your browser]( March 24, 2021 [Mail & Guardian]( [Mail & Guardian]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [YouTube]( Hi there, A reasonable person cannot believe the words that come out of Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s mouth. That’s not a statement made by Carlson’s critics but from a federal judge in New York and by Fox News’s own lawyers in defending Carlson against accusations of slander. It worked, by the way. Just read [US District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil’s opinion]( which leans heavily on the arguments of Fox’s lawyers: “[The] ‘general tenor’ of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary’.” She wrote: “Fox persuasively argues that given Mr Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of scepticism’ about the statement he makes.” Taking her cue from Carlson, former [Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell]( recently signalled her legal strategy in the defamation lawsuit brought against her by the voting-machine company Dominion. It’s so crude it’s almost genius. Her legal team claims that “reasonable people” would not take her claims about widespread election fraud as fact. Basically, a reasonable person would not believe the lies. Lawyers for a Nkandla man — who has been ordered to pay his estranged wife R95 000 a month as interim maintenance ahead of the dissolution of their marriage — were back in court on Tuesday, [saying the judge had got it wrong]( and he simply cannot afford to pay her that much. The man — a former head of state — would like the amount reduced to R20 000 a month. The parties in the matter cannot be named because of a blanket ruling by the Constitutional Court, barring the disclosure of identities in divorce matters. In court documents, the local man said Judge Barry Skinner, who presided over an interim maintenance application earlier this month, had misinterpreted his bank statements — subpoenaed by his soon-to-be-former wife — which showed large cash deposits and withdrawals. Payments into his account were “contributions and donations from sympathetic members of the public or donor organisations who support me politically” and should not have been deemed “income”, he said. What’s a reasonable person to believe? In an unrelated matter currently before the Zondo commission of inquiry, a former employee and consultant of Bain & Company explained how a destructive consultancy project with the South African Revenue Service (Sars) was a gateway for a wider entanglement with the Zuma administration that went all the way to energy procurement. This is the hypothesis of Athol Williams (above), who has worked for Bain for various periods since 1995. He was lecturing in values-based leadership at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business when the company approached him in 2018 to oversee an independent investigation, carried out by Baker McKenzie, into its role at Sars. According to Williams, Bain’s managing partner for South Africa, Vittorio Massone (below), held about [20 meetings with then president Jacob Zuma between 2012 and 2016](. The meetings were “very much concentrated” between 2013 and 2014. Williams’s testimony provides a window into the undoing of Sars during Tom Moyane’s tenure as commissioner, Emsie Ferreira reports. Before Moyane was appointed as Sars commissioner, Bain appeared to have played a role in Sipho Maseko’s appointment as Telkom chief executive. Like Moyane, Maseko received management training from Bain before he was appointed. And, as in the case of Moyane, Bain’s Massone met former president Zuma in the lead-up to Maseko’s appointment. Bain had described its work at Telkom as “a president’s project”, said Williams. Bain officially referred to its Telkom work as “Project Phoenix” and Massone, in an email, suggested it was a successful trial for the firm’s implementation of Zuma’s vision. A practice run if you will. Most troubling to Williams, he told the M&G, was the wide scope of Massone’s interactions with Zuma and that they allegedly intended establishing a presidential council or agency to implement future projects. Bain had worked with Moyane before he was appointed as Sars boss and even developed a plan for his first 100 days before he got the job. It was clear that Massone knew Moyane would be appointed. Once he took the job, Moyane appointed Bain to help to restructure Sars and Bain essentially legitimised the plan to gut the revenue service of its investigative capacity while charging significant fees. What’s a reasonable person to believe? “It seems to me that Bain had become president Zuma’s consultants of choice because Bain seems to have this assurance that they are key to whatever the president’s vision for the country is and his legacy,” said Williams. Representing Bain, Alfred Cockrell SC said the company’s application to cross-examine Williams was yet to be heard, and that request was not guaranteed, meaning Williams’s version would stand in perpetuity while the commission’s rules prevented Bain from releasing its submissions. Evidence leader Alistair Franklin SC noted that Bain leaders did not appear willing to subject themselves to questioning at the commission. With good reason. Williams said documents related to Bain’s work with the state suggested the company had planned to take a major advisory role in Zuma’s plans to restructure the economy. Included in this were plans to restructure the communications and IT sector, including work with Telkom, the SABC, Sentech and the Post Office. There was also talk of work with Eskom. Goings-on at Sars are due to take up most of the commission’s time this week and former officials Vlok Symington and Johann van Loggerenberg are set to testify after Williams. Moyane is scheduled to appear on 25 March. Now with all the talk of radical economic transformation, it is astounding to see how a US consultancy firm was so firmly embedded in the Zuma administration. What is a reasonable person to believe? Until tomorrow, Kiri Rupiah & Luke Feltham [Subscribe now]( Enjoy The Ampersand? Share it with your friends [Share]( [Share]( [Tweet]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( [Forward]( [Share]( [Share]( Copyright © 2021 Mail & Guardian Media LTD, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in to receive communications from the Mail & Guardian either at our website or by taking out a print subscription. Our mailing address is: Mail & Guardian Media LTD 25 Owl St BraamfonteinJohannesburg, Gauteng 2001 South Africa [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences or unsubscribe here.]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences]( Mail & Guardian Media LTD · 25 Owl St · Braamfontein · Johannesburg, Gauteng 2001 · South Africa