Cabinet Office tells Covid inquiry it does not have Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages
Cabinet Office #CabinetOffice
The Cabinet Office has told the Covid-19 inquiry that it cannot hand over Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and notebooks, because it does not possess them.
The inquiry has given the government until Thursday afternoon to explain what measures it has taken to gather the material, postponing a likely legal battle by two days.
In a further complication, Johnson claimed he was happy to pass the documents to the Cabinet Office but that officials had not asked.
The government had previously been given until 4pm today to comply with the order from the public inquiry, chaired by Baroness Hallett. It has requested unredacted WhatsApp messages exchanged by Johnson and 40 government figures, including Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Matt Hancock, Dominic Cummings — who was Johnson’s chief