Nigeria, May 5 -- The compromised former top boss of the Australian civil service has the lick and smell of belligerence. Begrudgingly conceding error and when in office, a bully and meddler in party politics, an incessant advocate of threats visible and invisible, Mike Pezzulo switches into a warmonger's gear with ease.

The former secretary of the Department of Home Affairs was sacked last November after revelations that he had used WhatsApp to communicate with abandon with former New South Wales Liberal Party deputy director Scott Briggs. Those messages, unearthed in a joint investigation by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes, confirmed what many already knew: Pezzullo's voracious appetite for meddling in the party polit...