Bruce Lehrmann’s house raided by NACC

The National Anti-Corruption Commission has raided the homes of former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann and his former media adviser, John Macgowan, to investigate allegations the pair shared top-secret submarine contracts.

The search warrants for Lehrmann and Macgowan seen by this masthead show officers were authorized under the Crimes Act to search for “documents concerning any submarine deal, program or procurement”, anything relating to the Australian Defense Force, the Department of Defense or the Royal Australian Navy and defense contractors.

Macgowan’s search warrant requested officers obtain any documents concerning the “Future Submarine Program (FSP), Attack class submarines, contracts, plans, diagrams, reports)“.

The warrant stated the Commonwealth had reasonable grounds for suspecting it could reveal evidence of two charges of abuse of public office and two charges of complicity and common purpose.

“Between March and April 2019 at Canberra … Bruce Emery Lehrmann, being a Commonwealth public official, 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,” the warrant he said.

Lehrmann’s search warrant also requested documents relating to “any submarine deal, program or procurement.”

A legal representative for Lehrmann, Zali Burrows, confirmed her client’s home had been raided by the commission on June 5 and described it as a “conspiracy theory.”

“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 cozy 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.”