Who is Aaron Bhatnagar? | The Jackal

21 Aug 2014

Who is Aaron Bhatnagar?

Aaron Bhatnagar is a National party official who works closely with right wing blogger Cameron Slater. In effect he's one of the go-betweens for the National party and their attack bloggers.

On Monday, 3 News reported:

Judith Collins on Aaron Bhatnagar
New emails reinforce the link between Whale Oil and Jason Ede in Prime Minister John Key's office.

But there is also the link between Justice Minister Judith Collins, Whale Oil and a man called Aaron Bhatnagar. Mr Bhatnagar is the man Mr Hager says first went inside Labour's computers before telling Whale Oil, who took advantage.

3 News can reveal that Ms Collins later gave Mr Bhatnagar a top public job.

One has to assume that Judith Collins was rewarding Bhatnagar for helping Slater smear the Labour party during the hacked database scandal. After the Minister claimed that she "barely knew the guy," what other valid explanation is there for his appointment?

Aaron Bhatnagar, the liaison between senior National party members and Cameron Slater, was meant to ensure that those at the top weren't directly implicated by the smear campaigns run on their behalf on sites like Whale Oil Beef Hooked and Kiwiblog.

Unfortunately for the National party, Nicky Hager's new book and the release of verifying emails clearly show a direct link between National and their underhanded propagandists, and despite John Key trying to distance himself, the Prime Minister is directly implicated and associated with the diatribe of innuendo and smears published but not always written by Cameron Slater and David Farrar.

Along with a number of other right-wingers, Aaron Bhatnagar has also been shown to directly contribute defamatory material that attacks opposition parties under Cameron Slater's name. This isn't something that the general public should accept. We need a good clean out at parliament to ensure our democracy isn't adversely affected by National's dirty politics. The best way to do that is to change the government in September.