📸

otherwise how am I going to fight this? If I didn’t have the pain I would probably think you (Banks) are just another prick. I have met plenty of those all my life. It isn’t a surprise people let you down, you know? Not at all. But it is just the severe situation I was in.”

Instead, Dotcom read media coverage while he was in prison and learnt of Banks’ disavowal. “I was like ‘What the hell — this guy toasted at my birthday. He was pitching all these things to me,” said Dotcom, adding that the two men discussed ways in which the political climate could change the business landscape — and how business could help motivate politicians to make the changes. Dotcom said he saw Banks as a forward-thinking politician who was pro-internet and pro-business. “That’s why I gave him the money.”

The fact had sat in Dotcom’s mind, a mere irritant, until, watching television news one evening, he saw an item that showed Banks avoiding questions about whether he had accepted a $15,000 donation from the SkyCity casino towards the 2010 mayoral campaign. Banks’ opponent Len Brown had listed a $15,000 donation from the casino. The casino was a donor that always contributed to both sides, indicating Banks had also received money but listed it as coming from an anonymous donor. Dotcom knew that wasn’t the only money Banks had listed as anonymous. He had also listed the $50,000 from Dotcom as anonymous — and specifically asked the money be broken into two chunks of $25,000, so it could be filtered into the accounts without standing out.

The details were carefully laid out on TV3’s current affairs show Campbell Live, during which host John Campbell quizzed the politician about his connection to Dotcom.

Campbell: “Did you ever helicopter out there?”
Banks: “Oh I don’t remember that. I had my own helicopter, of course. I was flying it myself.”
Campbell: “Did you ever land it at his house or go out there in a helicopter?”
Banks: “I don’t recall.”
Campbell: “You’d remember that, surely, if you’d helicoptered into the Coatesville mansion?”
Banks: “I can’t recall if I did or not.”
Campbell: “What — you can’t recall if you flew a helicopter into the Coatesville mansion of Kim Dotcom?”
Banks: “No. No.”

Campbell Live played footage of Banks toasting Dotcom at a birthday party, the pair greeting each other with a hug on New Year’s Eve 2010,

📸