THIS CRISIS IS ALL ABOUT JUSTIN TRUDEAU. Mcparland.

Let’s cut to the chase: Despite the cascade of revelations surrounding the crisis consuming the Trudeau government, the situation has become much clearer.

From everything we know now, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his top adviser did everything they could to get Jody WilsonRaybould to block a prosecution against Snc-lavalin on corruption charges. Their argument — and we have the prime minister’s own statement in the House of Commons on this — was prompted by intense concern over the potential economic impact of the trial, including lost jobs.

Last year the Liberals slipped through a new law specially tailored to let Snc-lavalin escape such a trial. But the law itself prevents economic concerns from being considered when deciding to apply it. So it would appear that the prime minister was asking WilsonRaybould to overlook the very rules his government had put in place, even after a decision had been made to proceed with prosecution.

The bitter dispute that has developed centres on whether or not the efforts by Trudeau, and his former principal secretary Gerald Butts, constituted undue pressure.

Liberal caucus members, justifiably alarmed at the damage the party has been doing to itself, now seem willing to buy into Trudeau’s insistence that he and Butts acted correctly. But the facts are running against them.

A timeline that emerged Wednesday undermines Trudeau’s claim. The decision to proceed against Lavalin was made by director of public prosecutions Kathleen Roussel on Sept. 4. WilsonRaybould had the power to reverse that decision, and Trudeau met with her two weeks later to discuss the matter. He acknowledges that — while he told her it was her decision to make — the economic consequences were raised.

When Wilson-raybould stuck by Roussel, another meeting was arranged, this time with Butts, on Dec. 5. The get-together came after Lavalin launched an intense lobbying campaign with senior members of the government in the wake of Roussel’s decision.

There can be little doubt the focus of the campaign was a desperate attempt to have Roussel’s decision reversed. Only WilsonRaybould could do that, and she was so worried about the PMO’S actions that she asked Trudeau directly whether he was ordering her to block the case.

He said no, yet six weeks later, there was Butts raising the issue with her once again. What possible reason could he have for doing so unless to make clear that her boss, the prime minister, very much wanted her to change her mind and save Lavalin from its fate, and the political damage to the Liberals likely to flow from it. Leaks from Wednesday’s cabinet meeting — and the continuation of damaging leaks from inside cabinet is another sign of the discord within the party — indicate that Wilson-raybould felt both Trudeau and Butts acted improperly.

As the Conservative deputy leader, Lisa Raitt, noted Wednesday: “If Snc-lavalin had already been denied a special deal through an independent process and then the prime minister met with Ms. Wilson-raybould to reaffirm her authority, the message to her would seem clear — that he’s not happy with the decision and that she should get involved.”

In addition to Trudeau and Butts, Wilson-raybould also heard from Michael Wernick, the clerk of the privy council, Canada’s top bureaucrat.

He told the justice committee Thursday he considered the conversations were “entirely appropriate, lawful (and) legal.”

Wilson-raybould believes that, whatever Trudeau and the others might claim, the repeat meetings were clear efforts to pressure her. Despite that belief, she has held to her position, and reinforced it once again Wednesday, even after Butts’ resignation, and after Trudeau pulled a belated apology out of his hat. The prime minister is a great believer in apologies; Wilson-raybould’s refusal to be swayed by his olive branch must further perplex and frustrate him. Here’s a woman who believes what she believes, and won’t be talked out of it. He clearly can’t figure out how to get his way with her, which is what he still wants. Allowing her to speak her mind, as she persists in demanding, evidently hasn’t yet entered his list of considerations.

He’s in a box now. Wilson-raybould is scheduled to appear before the justice committee next week. She wants Trudeau to lift all restrictions on what she is allowed to say.

His refusal to do so has only strengthened the suspicion he’s afraid of what he’ll hear, or has something to hide. By continuing to keep the gag on, he risks the possibility she’ll cancel her appearance, putting the spotlight squarely on the PMO. If he lets her speak, and she repeats what she allegedly said to cabinet, she puts him in the position of explaining why his justice minister and attorney general felt he was acting improperly, and why he continued nonetheless.

This is a crisis that has become all about Justin Trudeau. He has badly mishandled the affair from the beginning, driving one of his most important cabinet appointments into a rebellion over who is to be believed.

He has undermined his oftrepeated claims of devotion to a feminist agenda and Indigenous reconciliation. He is seeking to control the damage via a wall of silence that belies his pledge of an open and transparent administration. He is forcing members of his caucus to choose sides, putting their fear of public fallout against the words of a colleague whose job was to protect and follow the law.

And he has yet to answer why he demoted Wilson-raybould from her job after she stood up to him. If not as punishment, then why? And if it was indeed punishment, what does that say about Justin Trudeau, his respect for women, and all the talk of higher principles we’ve had from this government?

HE HAS BADLY MISHANDLED THE AFFAIR FROM THE BEGINNING.