The National Anti-Corruption Commission raided homes connected to former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann and his former media adviser, John Macgowan, in June to investigate allegations the pair shared top-secret submarine contracts.
Search warrants seen by this masthead show officers were authorised under the Crimes Act to search for “documents concerning any submarine deal, program or procurement”, anything relating to the Australian Defence Force, the Department of Defence or the Royal Australian Navy and defence contractors.
Bruce Lehrmann, left, with John Macgowan, in 2022.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Macgowan’s search warrant authorised officers to obtain any documents concerning the “Future Submarine Program (FSP), Attack-class submarines, contracts, plans, diagrams, reports”.
It said officers were authorised to search for documents where there were “reasonable grounds for suspecting that they will afford evidence” relating to the potential offences that Lehrmann “engaged in conduct as a Commonwealth public official and did so with the intention of dishonestly obtaining a benefit for himself or another person John Alex Macgowan”; and that Macgowan “aided, abetted, counselled or procured the commission of an offence by Bruce Emery Lehrmann”. They relate to periods between March and April 2019 in Canberra and May 2019 and June 2020 in Sydney.
Lehrmann’s search warrant also authorised officers to search for documents relating to “any submarine deal, program or procurement”.
Lehrmann worked for then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds in 2019 and was involved in work related to a French submarine deal that was later cancelled in favour of the AUKUS deal with the United States and Britain.
The commission confirmed it executed two search warrants with assistance from the Australian Federal Police and NSW Police on June 5 “in relation to an ongoing investigation”.
“As the matter is ongoing, the commission will not be making further comment, as to do so may compromise operational activities or unfairly impact reputations,” it said in a statement on Friday.
A legal representative for Lehrmann, Zali Burrows, confirmed her client’s home had been raided by the commission on June 5.
“The NACC’s conspiracy theory about secret French submarines and spy games is just another wild character assassination attempt against Bruce,” she said.
“They found nothing in the raid and it ended up simply being just a cosy night in with the officers and Bruce. The NACC bought a round of pizzas as they sat by the fireplace watching the State of Origin.”
Macgowan said of the allegations, it “simply isn’t true”.
“It was a massive waste of time and effort. It’s been a month and we haven’t heard a thing,” he said.
On Thursday, he posted on social media platform X that about 20 officers from the commission arrived at his girlfriend’s home on June 5.
“They really sent in a sniffer dog, they claimed it was a specialist dog trained to find phones and documents, but he got bamboozled by my bookshelf and the fact there were 20 people holding phones in the house,” he posted to X.
Lehrmann pleaded not guilty to raping former colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in a 2022 ACT Supreme Court trial, which was abandoned due to juror misconduct. A retrial was averted due to Higgins’ mental health.
Earlier this year, a Federal Court judge found Lehrmann had, on the balance of probabilities, raped Higgins, in Lehrmann’s own failed defamation bid against Network Ten. Lehrmann is appealing that decision.
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