Clare Rewcastle Brown was harassed and vilified for years for waging a quixotic campaign to expose Malaysian corruption that helped topple the country's long-ruling regime.
(Updated: )
The British investigative journalist is now back in the country of her birth after being blacklisted for years, and being treated as a celebrity in a sign of the whirlwind changes since historic May 9 elections.
No one is more stunned than Rewcastle, who said she expects to see further startling revelations of corruption and misrule emerge as a reformist administration cleans house.
"There is so much that's going to come tumbling out now," she said during an interview in Kuala Lumpur.
"Everyone is gob-smacked as they see these things happening. There are going to be more amazing scenes to come."
Rewcastle, now 58, has been a thorn in the side of Malaysia's ruling elite for years, working from abroad to expose larceny and misrule centering mostly on the rainforested state of Sarawak where she was born and spent her early years.
But her biggest bombshell may have been the 2015 revelation by her website Sarawak Report that nearly US$700 million was funnelled into the bank account of ex-premier Najib Razak.
That helped super-charge allegations that Najib and his entourage plundered billions from sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, in a scandal that led to his electoral defeat, ending six decades under an increasingly corrupt government.
He is now under investigation and expected to be charged.
(AFP/Laurence CHU, John SAEKI)
SMEAR CAMPAIGN
Rewcastle's work over the years triggered Malaysian arrest warrants, lawsuits, threats, and a sustained campaign of online vilification that she suspects was orchestrated by Najib's government using western PR firms.
The sister-in-law of former British prime minister Gordon Brown, Rewcastle was still recently being approached by shadowy characters offering pay-offs if she'd publish juicy "revelations" for them - ham-fisted attempts to entrap and discredit her, she says.
"Millions have gone into trying to destroy my reputation, which could have been spent on something useful," she said. "But all they did was help make me famous, the stupid idiots."
Never welcome, and officially barred from Malaysia in 2015, Rewcastle has gone almost overnight from persona non grata to welcome guest.
She met AFP following an interview with a state-aligned newspaper that formerly maligned her but gave her glowing front-page treatment on Monday.
She was halted repeatedly by ordinary Malaysians who recognised her distinctive ginger locks, stopping to thank her and snap selfies.
Many more have praised Rewcastle on social media after learning of her arrival. "It's extremely gratifying," she said.
Few foreigners were as feared by Malaysia's government.
Born in Sarawak when it was a British crown colony, she spent several years there, often following her mother - a midwife for indigenous people - on jungle jaunts to remote clinics.
She later worked for the BBC and others in London in investigative journalism before devoting herself to publicising Sarawak corruption, deforestation, and eviction of native peoples from traditional lands.
"I did this partly because I was mad, and partly because I thought there was a slim chance something could be done," she said of the state, which environmentalists believe has lost nearly all of its original rainforest.
In 2010, she started Sarawak Report and short-wave broadcaster Radio Free Sarawak - operated in secret from London, and later Bali, Brunei and Sarawak itself.
Rewcastle drew on a network of contacts in Malaysia to repeatedly expose Sarawak corruption. Najib's regime eventually blocked the website - a move the new government has reversed - and radio signals were jammed.
WINDING DOWN
With Malaysia on a reform path, Rewcastle expects to wind down her anti-graft work, which she said has been a "hand-to-mouth" operation reliant on family funds and the odd donation from supporters.
But she pledged to "do my darnedest" to continuing advocating for Sarawak.
That includes pushing for investigations into its former chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud.
The retired 82-year-old, who was loosely aligned with Najib's regime, is accused by indigenous activists of ruling Sarawak like a family fiefdom for 33 years, plundering its timber and building ecologically harmful dams.
Sarawak Report, along with the Bruno Manser Fund, a Swiss NGO, has documented huge investments around the world by Taib's circle.
"Taib needs to be taken by the ankles and shook, so the money falls out," Rewcastle said.
"There's still a lot to be done. But we're in a terrific position now to really campaign for what this was originally about."
Just a few months ago, the political machine led by Najib Razak, the gilded prime minister of Malaysia, appeared so indestructible that a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal seemed unlikely to derail it. The end came so quickly, so completely, that even his opponents were shocked.
For nearly a decade, Mr. Najib, 64, had unfettered control of his nation’s courts and coffers. His party had thrived by unfailingly delivering huge cash handouts at election time. The media was at his disposal; journalists he didn’t like, he shut down. Political foes were shoved into prison.
The pampered son of a prime minister and nephew of another, Mr. Najib enjoyed the friendship of President Trump, who after playing golf with him in 2014 gave him a photo inscribed, “To my favorite prime minister.” Last year, Mr. Trump hosted Mr. Najib at the White House, even as the United States Department of Justice accused him of taking Malaysian state money.
But his authority suddenly evaporated in the early hours after Malaysia’s national elections on May 9 delivered a commanding majority to the opposition, now led by the political titan who had once lifted Mr. Najib to power: the 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad.
The opposition was fractious, and remains so, but it was galvanized by a single purpose: to deliver the ouster of Mr. Najib to an electorate furious at his excesses and emboldened by social media even as news outlets were being muzzled.
Now, Mr. Najib is suddenly vulnerable to criminal charges at home, as well as a reinvigorated effort by the Justice Department as it pursues billions of dollars missing from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, the country’s state investment fund supervised by Mr. Najib for years.
The details released from that investigation in the past three years painted a lurid picture of a Malaysian leader and his family members and friends living high on diverted public money.
Those accusations, and others, became grist for social media outrage in Malaysia, frequently on private WhatsApp groups, but it seemed Mr. Najib still underestimated how much he was losing: a public that still valued some semblance of moderation, his once unbreakable Malay power base, even family members.
Mr. Najib’s stepdaughter, Azrene Ahmad, took to Instagram on Friday with an emotional condemnation of him and her mother, Rosmah Mansor, who had become widely known here for piling up designer labels, garlands of jewelry and a multimillion-dollar handbag collection that more than rivaled the shoe fetish of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines.
“Today marks the end of a day of tyranny that many have prayed for,” Ms. Azrene wrote, describing how she had “witnessed many trespasses, deals and handshakes these two made for the benefit of power and to fuel their appetite for greed.”
“The numerous offshore accounts opened to launder money out of the country for their personal spending,” she continued, cataloging her accusations against them. “The steel safes full of jewels, precious stones and cash amassed. Being made a cash mule.”
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Supporters of Mahathir Mohamad outside the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.CreditUlet Ifansasti/Getty Images
Mr. Najib’s brother, Nazir Razak, joined in, implicitly casting his brother’s ouster as a chance for progress. “Malaysia needs major recalibration, but all attempts under the old order failed,” he wrote on social media. “Now you can!”
Even the state-linked news media, which had spent years writing slavish articles describing Mr. Najib’s wisdom and Ms. Rosmah’s charitable ventures, dropped the multiple honorifics that once preceded his name.
Mr. Mahathir, who was sworn in as prime minister on Thursday, has called Mr. Najib a thief and said he must face the consequences of his actions. “High or low, all are subject to the law,” Mr. Mahathir said Sunday at a news conference.
“This totally changes everything,” said Ren McEachern, a former supervisory special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who specialized in international corruption. “Now that he’s out of office, there could be an appetite for criminal charges.”
Further, Mr. Najib’s removal from office is bringing new vigor to efforts by the Justice Department to pursue him, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation but who is not authorized to speak publicly. The department declined to comment on the case for this article.
After his defeat, Mr. Najib posted a Twitter message that was at least partly contrite. “I apologize for any shortcomings and mistakes,” he wrote, even as he maintained that “the best interests of Malaysia and its people will always be my first priority.”
But the saga of Najib Razak is one of astonishing insatiability and unaccountability. And it is a tale of a political party — the United Malays National Organization, which Mr. Najib led — that teethed on graft and patronage and collapsed under the weight of its own immoderation.
“For a long time, elites across the region have enjoyed a culture of impunity,” said Donald Greenlees, an authority on Southeast Asia at Australian National University. “There is no doubt that the decades of mostly one-party rule, the capture of state institutions, particularly the judiciary, and the taming of the media led Najib to believe he was untouchable.”
Mr. Najib’s downfall was a vanishingly rare event in a region where democracy has retreated in recent years. In Malaysia, as in other places across Southeast Asia, elections had been deployed only to legitimize those in power. Yet without a single shot fired or a threat of a coup uttered, Mr. Najib was toppled.
“The day I left home I left you a warning,” Ms. Azrene, his stepdaughter, wrote on Instagram. “There will come a reckoning when the people will punish you for your trespasses on them. There will come a day when God will punish you for your trespasses, the very people you swore to protect.”
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Malaysian police officers seizing equipment from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) office in Kuala Lumpur in 2015. Billions of dollars disappeared from the state fund.CreditMohd Rafsan
The Flawed Heir
Mr. Najib’s pedigree was impeccable, and from an early age seemed destined to take the helm at the United Malays National Organization, which counts the betterment of the country’s ethnic Malay majority as its founding mission.
Educated at elite British schools, he acquired a posh English accent and a fondness for fine tailoring. Unlike his onetime mentor, Mr. Mahathir, he did not have an instant rapport with the rural Malay Muslim base, and early in his political career he struggled to speak Malay.
Still, the legacies of Mr. Najib’s father, who was the second prime minister of Malaysia, and his uncle, who was the country’s third, helped make up for his lack of grass-roots appeal. In interviews, Mr. Najib was smooth, gracious and somewhat distant.
“Najib grew up thinking that leading the country was his birthright,” said Rafizi Ramli, a top strategist for the opposition that ousted Mr. Najib and the National Front coalition. “He doesn’t realize that you have to earn the people’s trust and maintain the people’s trust. He is completely removed from Malaysia, the real Malaysia.”
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Mr. Najib’s father, Abdul Razak, who also served as prime minister of Malaysia. Mr. Abdul died in 1976.CreditRolls Press, via Getty Images
But his reputation was tarnished years before he became prime minister in 2009.
In 2006, when Mr. Najib was deputy prime minister, the Mongolian mistress of one of his advisers, Abdul Razak Baginda, was killed, blown up by military-grade explosives. Two of Mr. Najib’s bodyguards were eventually convicted in her murder.
French investigators are still examining whether Mr. Najib, during his time as defense minister, might have personally profited from around $130 million in kickbacks related to a transaction for French submarines. Before she was killed, the Mongolian woman, Altantuya Shaariibuu, claimed she was owed half a million dollars for brokering that deal.
The biggest scandal of all exploded in 2015 when opposition politicians and muckraking journalists questioned what had happened to billions of dollars that had disappeared from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, the country’s state investment fund.
Mr. Najib oversaw the fund, known as 1MDB, and unveiled it in 2009 as a surefire way to bring further prosperity to Malaysians through smart foreign investments and development projects.
In 2016, the United States Department of Justice dropped a bombshell: A person it referred to as Malaysian Official 1 had siphoned $731 million from 1MDB. Officials privately confirmed that Mr. Najib was Malaysian Official 1.
The Justice Department’s accusations continued: In total, more than $4.5 billion in 1MDB funds was laundered through American banks, enriching Mr. Najib, his family and friends, prosecutors said.
It said $250 million went for a megayacht, complete with a helicopter pad and movie theater, built for Jho Low, a financier friend of Mr. Najib’s stepson, Riza Aziz. Mr. Low is accused of being central to the plot, and federal prosecutors said he used 1MDB funds to buy the actor Leonardo DiCaprio a $3.2 million Picasso painting for his birthday. The Australian model Miranda Kerr received $8 million in jewelry. (Both have since returned the gifts.)
Mr. Najib explained that $681 million deposited in his personal bank account was a gift from a Saudi patron. In 2015, after Malaysia’s attorney general gathered evidence of Mr. Najib’s involvement in 1MDB and seemed poised to press charges, Mr. Najib fired him. Subsequent Malaysian government investigations cleared Mr. Najib of any wrongdoing.
Malaysians were accustomed to a certain amount of grease in the country’s political system, but the extravagant sums linked to the 1MDB scandal shocked the public. United States federal prosecutors called the money-laundering scheme “massive, brazen and blatant.”
Mr. Najib moved to shut down critical news reports, or to spin it in the state media outlets. But he could not block everything.
The Malaysian political establishment wondered how the son of a famously ascetic prime minister had grown so venal and careless. “If you want to steal this kind of money, why would you put it in your own account?” said James Chin, a Malaysian who is the director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania. “It shows such arrogance.”
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Mr. Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, in 2014, leaving the Time Warner Center in New York, the site of one of their homes. Ms. Rosmah is known for her overseas shopping trips and a multimillion-dollar collection of Hermès Birkin handbags.CreditMichael Appleton for The New York Times
Blame the Wife
As the public grew angrier about the excesses, Ms. Rosmah became a frequent target of ire.
Her habit of taking chartered shopping expeditions to Europe and Australia, presumably at the expense of Malaysian taxpayers, became social-media fodder. Her Hermès Birkin handbag collection, one broker said, was worth at least $10 million.
“Rightly or wrongly, Rosmah was vilified as the major partner in the corruption and scandals associated with the prime minister,” said Lim Teck Ghee, a public policy analyst in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital.
In 2015, when Mr. Najib’s and Ms. Rosmah’s daughter married the nephew of President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, guests were astonished by their lavish wedding celebrations. Mr. Mahathir, who attended one party, recalled seeing soldiers lugging at least 17 trunks loaded with luxury gifts for the guests. “I had never seen that even at royal weddings,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in 2016.
Fazley Yaakob, the husband of Mr. Najib’s stepdaughter, offered another story, which he recounted on Instagram after Mr. Najib lost the election. Before the two were married, Mr. Fazley wrote, Ms. Rosmah hired a witch doctor to assess the suitability of the union. The witch doctor warned against the marriage because Mr. Fazley, unlike others, would be able to resist Ms. Rosmah’s supernatural powers.
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Mr. Najib and Ms. Rosmah in 2000.CreditLeo Chan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The pair married anyway. “All hell broke loose right after,” wrote Mr. Fazley, without detailing exactly what happened.
Mr. Najib was called the “Man of Steal” by Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, one of Malaysia’s top cartoonists, who caricatured Ms. Rosmah with a giant diamond ring on her plump finger. Mr. Najib’s reaction was unforgiving. Mr. Zulkiflee, who is known by the pen name Zunar, was charged with nine counts of sedition and still could face up to 43 years in prison.
Election Day on May 9, Mr. Zulkiflee said, was “the happiest moment of my life,” and he hopes the charges will now be dropped.
During the campaign, Mr. Mahathir, who said he came out of retirement two years ago to join the opposition because he was so shocked by the cloud of corruption around Mr. Najib, succeeded in harnessing public angst over the rising cost of living to financial scandals linked to the prime minister. One that particularly resonated with rural Malays, some of whom ended up casting swing votes in favor of the opposition, was a farm subsidy program that, by some accounts, was missing around $750 million. Mr. Najib oversaw that program.
Those defections proved critical, though there was no assurance that Mr. Mahathir could still command his old popularity.
“1MDB was a key factor in the election result,” said Mr. Lim, the public policy analyst. “The long-running scandal became indelibly associated with the endemic high-level corruption in the country.”
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Electronic advertising in Kuala Lumpur before the election promoted Mr. Najib and his coalition. Mr. Najib had predicted another victory at the polls this month.CreditUlet Ifansasti/Getty Images
Failed Containment
Yet even as public outrage intensified, Mr. Najib seemed curiously removed from reality. In omnipresent campaign billboards, he hogged the limelight, his grin and upturned hands evoking less a statesman than a salesman. Malaysian voters were supposed to acquiesce to whatever deal he had on offer.
Under Mr. Najib’s leadership, the party ensured victory in 2013 by passing out hundreds of millions of dollars to party leaders to give to voters, according to his own aides.
The strategy was similar for 2018, analysts said, and Mr. Najib had predicted that the governing coalition would do even better in this month’s elections than it had in 2013, before the 1MDB scandal broke out.
On the eve of campaigning, Mr. Najib’s information minister, Salleh Said Keruak, bragged that the United Malays National Organization, or UMNO, would win easily, and that the party had access to a trove of government data on Malaysian voters. “We have it all at our fingertips,” he said.
Mr. Salleh wasn’t the only one to miscalculate. Local polling agencies predicted the elections would go to the National Front coalition, which is dominated by UMNO. Across the country, public flag displays supporting the National Front vastly outnumbered those of the opposition Alliance of Hope.
Still, there were murmurings of discontent. In a first, Malaysia’s navy chief reminded his sailors that the vote was secret so they should choose freely.
And though Mr. Trump met with Mr. Najib at the White House last September, the effort by a former top Republican operative, Elliott Broidy, to get them together again for golf failed, despite Mr. Broidy’s assurance to the White House chief of staff in a leaked email that he knew Mr. Najib well. Mr. Najib didn’t even get a customary photo op during the visit.
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A closed road outside Mr. Najib’s mansion, in the background, in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.CreditAndy Wong/Associated Press
In the final months of the campaign, Mr. Najib fell back on tried-and-true money politics. The day before the election, he promised that Malaysians 26 and younger would not have to pay income tax if his coalition prevailed. Earlier, he offered significant pay hikes to civil servants, who are mostly ethnically Malay rather than from Malaysia’s Chinese or Indian minorities.
“That has always been his style: When faced with difficulties, throw goodies at them,” said Oh Ei Sun, a Kuala Lumpur-based analyst and former political secretary to Mr. Najib.
Other tactics were more iron-fisted. Shortly before campaigning began, Mr. Najib’s party pushed through a so-called fake news law that was the first in the world to use Mr. Trump’s catchphrase as it criminalized publishing or circulating misleading information. The law, critics feared, could land anyone who criticized Mr. Najib in prison for up to six years. His government also designed a broad gerrymandering scheme that diminished the impact of minorities who were unlikely to vote for him.
None of these efforts, hard or soft, worked. “The Najib brand is toxic,” said Mr. Chin of the University of Tasmania. “There was no way he could run away from this.”
On Sunday, Mr. Najib and Ms. Rosmah were still holed up in their mansion in Kuala Lumpur. A bodyguard at their home, who asked not to be identified in the press out of fear of reprisals, said that the stream of cronies who once knocked at their door had stopped. Even their housekeeper, he said, had deserted them.
Hannah Beech and Richard C. Paddock reported from Kuala Lumpur, and Alexandra Stevenson from Hong Kong. Sharon Tan and Austin Ramzy contributed reporting from Kuala Lumpur, and David D. Kirkpatrick from London.
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A POLITICAL drama with Malaysian actors is about to explode at the High Court of Justice in London at the Strand. With all the excitement of the popular TV series – the House of Cards. Very high-profile Malaysian politicians and business players are featured. Even former Bar Council president Ambiga makes a brief cameo appearance.
Posted on 13 November 2017 - 11:14am Last updated on 13 November 2017 - 11:26am
Gurdial Singh Nijar
PAS president Hadi Awang has sued Sarawak Report editor, Clare Brown. In this suit filed earlier this year, Hadi claims that his reputation has been seriously harmed in England, Wales, Singapore and Malaysia – by a political commentary by Clare on the Sarawak Report website. This website has been blocked in Malaysia.
The claim
The sting of the complaint is in the final eight short paragraphs of the article. It states that PAS was wooed away from the opposition coalition "in the normal way ...".
Hadi complains that this implies that he "had personally accepted, or procured or approved the acceptance by PAS of, a massive bribe ... in exchange for compromising PAS's political independence". Thus "disgracefully undermin(ing) the democratic process".
The defence
In her 55-page "Defence" statement, Clare says:
» The article refers to PAS and the top echelons of the party. Hadi is neither named nor identified. And that Hadi is interfering in her and the public's rights to freedom of expression and free discussion of political matters. This interference she claims is "disproportionate, unnecessary and unjustified".
» The words complained of cannot be understood to bear the meanings that Hadi alleged or at all.
» The article did not – nor was it likely – to cause serious harm to Hadi's reputation.
» Hadi was bringing this case not "to correct and protect himself from serious harm to his reputation but for the illegitimate purposes of protecting the reputations and advancing the political purposes of PAS and his political ally, ...".
» The article contained "statements on matters of the greatest possible public interest". And that it was reasonable (for Clare) to believe that publishing the statement was in the public interest.
» If the words could be construed to convey a defamatory imputation, Clare says that the imputation is substantially true. She will prove at the trial that Hadi as president of PAS "has knowingly allowed that party to be compromised and corrupted morally and politically and the democratic process to be undermined by senior party personnel accepting and personally benefiting from enormous secret payments of money … paid to undermine and draw PAS away from the Opposition coalition".
Counterclaim
Clare has also counterclaimed against Hadi for colluding with the other party to exploit these proceedings as part of propaganda efforts to discredit her and the Sarawak Report.
Clare also says that Hadi has attacked her viciously and racially through publications. She is claiming damages for the consequent harassment which is actionable under UK's Protection from Harassment Act of 1997.
Actors and accusations
Sprayed throughout the defence are the names of persons Malaysians will readily recognise. Less known are their attributes. Such as of a blogger, for example, described as a paid propagandist. The whole episode involving a strategic development company is narrated in considerable detail involving all the usual players.
The defence is studded with details of all the previous accusations which we have heard ad nauseam. The narration of the lavish lifestyle of some PAS leaders is a revelation of sorts.
The trial
Of course, all these allegations and counter-allegations will have to be proved – in a courtroom some 11,000km from KL. Both parties will roll out the evidence in support of their respective case. Perhaps, at long last, we may gain a blow-by-blow insight of the strategic development company's transactions that have consumed so much of our time and energy; and tested credulity.
Will the truth finally emerge?
Well, it will be all out there – unveiled by the protagonists in a no-holds "battle royal" within the hallowed halls of the 19th century cathedral-style London High Court of Justice.
Gurdial is a former law professor at University of Malaya and currently a consultant in a law firm. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
PETALING JAYA: PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang has filed a defamation suit against Sarawak Report editor and founder Clare Rewcastle Brown for alleging that he had received money from the government.
Party secretary-general Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan said the suit was filed at the London High Court on April 21.
He added Abdul Hadi was seeking for damages and an injunction order from the court, in relation to an article published by Sarawak Report on Aug 6 last year titled "As Najib denies all over 1MDB, let's not forget his many other criminal connections".
Takiyuddin said the article had suggested that Abdul Hadi had personally received a big amount of bribe from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak as an exchange to compromise PAS' political stand.
"All of the allegations were not true at all. The allegations of corruption has clearly destroyed and affected the reputation of the PAS president ...," he said in a statement.
Takiyuddin said Abdul Hadi had appointed a London-based legal firm, Carter-Nick, to submit a letter of complaint to Rewcastle at the end of last year.
He added the letter had demanded for Rewcastle to remove or delete the article and publish an apology to Abdul Hadi.
"However, Miss Rewcastle Brown has failed to provide a response to the complaint and made several public statements that had complicated the situation," he said.
Takiyuddin said the suit need to be made as the article had affected his reputation in Malaysia and Singapore, as well as in England and Wales.
"Taking into consideration the heavy accusation, the PAS president will not let it go unchallenged and has no choice but to initiate legal proceedings," he said.
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak has today openly denied an accusation by whistleblower portal Sarawak Report that he had paid RM90 million to PAS.
In what seemed to be his first counter reaction against the allegation, Najib, who is also the Umno president, said that the matter was played-up by certain parties to smear the image of the government.
"I did not give the money to PAS, and that is why PAS has sued Sarawak Report. We will wait for the decision. Clare (Rewcastle-Brown) is now 'gelabah' (uneasy)," he said.
"I cannot comment (more) as it (the case) is in court. This is all rubbish but was made to give us the bad image," Najib said in his speech at the party's Social Media Convention at Putra World Trade Centre.
Sarawak Report in one of its articles had alleged that PAS had received the RM90 million from Najib, an accusation which has been denied by the Islamist party.
PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang in April filed a defamation suit against Sarawak Report's Rewcastle-Brown, the Sarawak Report editor and founder, for alleging that he had received money from the government.
Najib mentioned the Sarawak Report's allegation as an example of the cyberattacks launched by certain parties to sway public opinion against the government.
In responding to another allegation over his recent visit to the US, Najib dismissed rumours that he had brought "buckets of money" to his meeting with President Donald Trump.
"I went to the US to show to Trump that we do not come to seek donation. We came there as a successful nation.
"Other countries went there to ask for loans, but we told Trump that we are a successful country. This is due to the struggle of Umno all this time," he said.
