Assumptions on Person A

at reports:

The person known only as “A” in relation to a legal challenge to the -led inquiry into the unauthorised release of sensitive Cabinet documents came into contact with the documents in a clerical role, the Appeal Court has heard.

This is a significant revelation. Most people had been assuming that Person A was a diplomat – an MFAT professional. And while no civil servant should be condoned for leaking “sensitive Cabinet documents”, there was a reasonable amount of sympathy for Person A on the assumption that they were an MFAT diplomat directly affected by the proposed restructuring.

But that assumption is wrong. So does this mean other common assumptions re Person A and the leak could be wrong.

  1. Could the assumption Person A works at MFAT be wrong? Might it be someone from elsewhere in the public sector?
  2. Could the motivation then be not personal or professional, but purely political and partisan?
  3. How does someone is in a (presumably not highly paid) clerical assistant afford the cost of legal action to stop the report in both the High Court and the ?
  4. Could someone else be paying the bills, or assisting with them?

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