Former Shin Bet head Yoram Cohen that he was asked by Prime Minister Netanyahu to wiretap a slew of senior officials who were suspected of leaking sensitive information, including IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Mossad head Tamir Pardo.
"The Prime Minister, following a sensitive security project that was on the agenda, invited me to a professional meeting together with other parties, and spoke of a secret on a national level with a goal not to expose him. Therefore, he asked for supervision of the field security who were partners to the secret. I replied that his fears were legitimate, but I told him that it was illegitimate to use our apparatuses on a subject in which there was no specific suspicion of anyone," Cohen told Army Radio.