A source close to the privileges committee said Ms Johnson and other attendees could be brought in front of MPs to explain what happened at the two events.
“What they are deciding is whether the Prime Minister lied to Parliament. For that they have to go beyond the two elements of what he said,” the source explained.
“The prime minister says that they gave him guarantees [that they complied with the rules]. Whose assurances were they and what is the truth?
“The committee will want to talk to Sue Gray and maybe Carrie.
“It’s entirely up to them to investigate Abba’s alleged party and the other possible party in the flat and demand whatever documents and witnesses they want.”
The source insisted that the privileges committee had stronger powers than the Gray investigation to call witnesses and demand answers. Failure to do so, even by private citizens, could be contempt of Parliament.
Possible ‘bombs’
The source described the latest allegations as possible “bombshells” and added: “It shatters the quality of investigations by the Met Police and Sue Gray. It shatters the suggestion that they cooperated all along and it shatters the argument that the Prime Minister did not lied”.
Last night, Labor asked the privileges committee to investigate the participation of the prime minister and his wife in the meeting at his flat on his birthday.
In a letter to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, Angela Rayner, Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, urged him to make the messages public and pass them on to committee because of the “very genuine public interest in getting to the truth”.
Ms. Rayner wrote: “Given the public interest at stake, I request that you make public your correspondence relating to this event and your whereabouts by the date of Friday, June 19, 2020, and post the relevant messages you have received, as well as deliver them. to the privileges committee for consideration as part of its investigation.”
Downing Street has previously agreed that two events to mark Johnson’s birthday took place on June 19: one in the afternoon for which he and his wife received a fixed-fine notice, and another with his brothers legally held outdoors in their yard. The number 10 had ruled out in January the existence of a third fact as “totally false”.
Dispute version of events
The Downing Street assistant alleges that she notified Gray’s inquiry about the texts in January. The whistleblower said they did not want to forward the messages, but said they were prepared to go to the Cabinet Office and show them to officials in person. The office disputes that version of events and insists no such offer was made.
A source said: “Any relevant information given to the Cabinet Office has been explored and acted upon. That’s how we got to the point where we published the findings last week.”
“The individual did not offer to take the messages to the Cabinet Office, so there was no chance for the investigation team to read them.”
They added: “The individual refused to provide the investigative team with those messages despite being asked to provide such relevant information. They indicated that they would provide it to the Metropolitan Police.”
When the assistant made a second offer to show the texts earlier this month, Sue Gray’s investigation was already over. The suggestion that the investigation had not searched for crucial evidence was strongly disputed.
Reference-www.telegraph.co.uk