KEY POINTS:
Winston Peters' lawyer friend Peter Williams, QC, says Prime Minister Helen Clark has seen the documentation that he predicts will clear him of wrongdoing within minutes today.
Mr Williams and Mr Peters will show the statement from the Spencer Trust to the Serious Fraud Office at 10 this morning.
Mr Williams was present when Mr Peters and Helen Clark met in Parnell yesterday. He said the Prime Minister had a quick look at the statement and was disappointed Mr Peters was having to stand down.
The statement was issued by Mr Peters' brother, Wayne Peters, a Whangarei lawyer and Spencer Trust administrator.
"She had a quick look at the document but she didn't examine it as an accountant would, and I wouldn't expect her to either," Mr Williams said.
The statement, several pages long, was generated by the trust and showed incomings and outgoings. It showed money from the Vela brothers and Sir Robert Jones going in, then being paid to New Zealand First.
The SFO is to use its special powers to investigate whether the donations reached their intended destination.
Mr Williams said the SFO had bungled its inquiry by not asking to see the Spencer Trust.
"The books are there, the statement is there, the entries are there, the disbursements are there, the complete answer is there and nobody has taken the trouble to look at them.
"It shows Jones' money, it shows the Vela money and it shows it being appropriately disbursed."
Mr Williams said a communication breakdown was the reason the paper trail had not been revealed sooner.
Meanwhile, the Serious Fraud Office has deflected allegations of bias against Winston Peters by assigning investigators with no involvement in the Winebox case that caused the bad blood between them.
Mr Peters has put the investigation into the donations controversy down to his trenchant criticism of the SFO "failing to follow up on major taxation cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars over 10 years ago".
At the time, Mr Peters made serious claims of a "criminal conspiracy" stretching from leading business figures to former SFO director Chas Sturt.
The SFO yesterday confirmed a "normal-sized" four-person team of a supervisor, investigator, forensic accountant and lawyer were investigating - and that none were on the Winebox team.
However, the SFO said the lawyer and the forensic accountant were employees at that time. And current SFO assistant director Gib Beattie has been there since its inception and was on the Winebox team.
Mr Peters also implied the inquiry could be blamed on NZ First's support for legislation abolishing the SFO.
Asked if the SFO could be accused of bias, director Grant Liddell said while there was "history", it would investigate "professionally, competently, comprehensively, without regard to any extraneous interests".
Mr Peters' position with the SFO had changed after standing down as Minister of Foreign Affairs last night, offering his "full co-operation".
Mr Peters had lashed out at the SFO shortly before the probe was announced on Thursday, saying it should either lay charges against him or "shut up and go away".
Mr Peters had also called the investigation "ridiculous in the extreme" and said the matter could have been cleared up in a few minutes if the SFO had talked to him.
Roger McClay, the adviser to Mr Peters present when a $25,000 donation was solicited from Sir Robert Jones that went to the Spencer Trust instead of the party, told the Weekend Herald he had not been contacted by the SFO.
