Beware, the Russians are coming is the latest joke in the tragic Panama Papers saga. But rather than Vladimir Putin and his spies, it is Donald Trump and his men who should truly interest us. There are lessons to learn from what is happening in the US.

The US Justice Department exercised its prerogative to appoint an independent investigator and the Deputy Attorney General named a former FBI director to probe accusations that Russia intervened in last year’s US presidential election. The Attorney General decided to keep his distance from the Russia inquiry because he too had met a Russian diplomat at the centre of the scandal.

When the US Deputy Attorney General announced the appointment of the independent counsel he said it was being done in the public interest. The American people, he continued, had to have full confidence that the rule of law, free from partisan politics, prevailed.

In this regard, there is more than the Mediterranean and the Atlantic that divide the two democracies. All systems have failed here and the only hope that remains lies in the work being done by the four or five magistrates looking into the latest allegations.

The Attorney General, who chairs the board of governors of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, which reached some damning conclusions about possible money laundering by people in high places, has, much like Pontius Pilate, washed his hands of any responsibility. If the law compels an citizens to report any crime, surely the Attorney General cannot sit pretty when faced with the FIAU’s very clear findings.

The Police Commissioner insists the law bars him from making any comments, though in a recent brief interview, he seemed to imply he would speak if approached by some authority empowered by law to seek information in his possession. Still, the police have every right to investigate – and then decide whether to prosecute or not – and the FIAU was crystal clear: further investigations were in order. The Police Commissioner is not being asked to comment on that but to take action as recommended by the government’s anti-money laundering agency.

In the US, “an extraordinary series of misdeeds and follies”, as The Economist put it, led to the independent inquiry. Not here, though, to be fair, the Prime Minister did push for a magisterial inquiry but only with regard to the Egrant ownership allegations, which implicated his wife. All the other serious accusations – which impinge on his leadership and competence – escaped his attention. It was then the leader of the Opposition who submitted “evidence” about this to the inquiring magistrate/s.

Nothing stops the government, or some other authority willing to bell the cat, to nominate a person who, like the former FBI director, can conduct a thorough and in-depth inquiry.

Former police commissioner John Rizzo is the ideal candidate. He enjoys the trust of both political leaders for, even if the Prime Minister had removed him from office he did promise to appoint him as head of the Security Service, though he never kept his word, probably egged on by the same people who would object to giving the task being suggested here.

Mr Rizzo can rescue the Prime Minister from the crooks around him and help him regain his credibility.

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