Scheer calls on PM to resign following Jody Wilson-Raybould's damning testimony,
Wilson-Raybould says PM consistently pressed her to interfere in SNC criminal case
OTTAWA— Jody Wilson-Raybould says she was the target of “veiled threats” and a “consistent and sustained” effort by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his senior officials to politically interfere in criminal charges against SNC-Lavalin.
In nearly four hours in testimony that riveted the nation’s capital and — in the eyes of some legal experts — may have created a constitutional crisis for the Liberal government, the former attorney general and justice minister said that the prime minister, his top officials, his top civil servant, the finance minister and his staff all applied “political and partisan” pressure that she said was highly “inappropriate.”
Wilson-Raybould told the House of Commons justice committee that it would have been unlawful for her to reverse a decision by the independent director of public prosecutions on the basis of political or partisan considerations, and offer to negotiate deal with the Quebec company as the prime minister made clear he wanted her to do.
She said she believes she was fired from her job as attorney general in January for not bending to his will.
But Trudeau attempted to cast doubt on Wilson-Raybould’s story, insisting there was no wrongdoing and saying it is the government’s job to focus on “jobs and the economy.”
“I strongly maintain, as I have from the beginning, that I and my staff always acted appropriately and professionally,” he told a hastily called news conference Wednesday. “I therefore completely disagree with the former attorney general’s characterization of events.”
Despite bombshell revela- tions of new conversations and meetings, and identifying 11 people whose actions she viewed as unwelcome political pressure, Wilson-Raybould said she did not believe the actions of the prime minister or his officials were unlawful or a breach of the criminal code.
But she also said she and her staff repeatedly warned officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, as well as Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick and Trudeau himself, they were crossing a line, but to no avail.
Her testimony was a body blow to the Trudeau government, with Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer demanding the prime minister’s resignation, the NDP calling for a public inquiry, and legal experts saying the country’s reputation for upholding the rule of law is on the line. The RCMP would only say Wednesday night that it was aware of the matter.
Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond, a law professor and former Saskatchewan provincial court judge, said she was “gobsmacked” by Wilson-Raybould’s account, adding it is clear that “the attorney general of Canada was fired for doing her job.”
“It’s fair to say it’s a constitutional crisis,” said Turpel-Lafond, adding the events as outlined “shake the foundations of our very system.”
Scheer said Trudeau had lost the moral authority to govern.
“I was sickened and appalled by her story of inappropriate and, frankly, illegal pressure brought to bear on her by the highest officials of Justin Trudeau’s government,” the Conservative leader told a Parliament Hill news conference.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh did not call for Trudeau to step aside but said the revelations underscore his own party’s demands for an independent public inquiry. “This is cutting to the heart of our democracy,” he said. “This is explosive. It has shaken us all.”
In her testimony to the committee, Wilson-Raybould cited 10 meetings and 10 phone calls that she said were part of an effort to “politically interfere” with the criminal proceedings against SNC-Lavalin in order to secure a deferred prosecution.
At one point, at a meeting on Sept. 17 — nearly two weeks after the director of public prosecutions had advised her there would be no SNC-Lavalin deal — Wilson-Raybould said she directly challenged Trudeau.
“The prime minister asked me to help out, to find a solution here for SNC, citing that if there was no (deferred prosecution agreement) there would be many jobs lost, and that SNC would move from Montreal,” Wilson-Raybould said.
“In response, I explained to him the law, and what I have the ability to do and not do under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act around issuing directives or assuming the conduct of prosecutions. I told him that I had done my due diligence and had made up my mind on SNC and that I was not going to interfere.”
She said she looked Trudeau “in the eye,” asked whether he was directing her to interfere, and told him squarely that it was inappropriate to do so.
In a 38-minute opening statement and repeatedly in answers to questions, Wilson-Raybould pointed the finger directly at Trudeau, as well as his top officials in the PMO, the Privy Council office and the office of the minister of finance, citing phone calls and in-person meetings that she felt amounted to a “barrage of peo- ple hounding me and my staff.”
“Within these conversations, there were express statements regarding the necessity of interference in the SNC-Lavalin matter, the potential of consequences and veiled threats if a DPA was not made available to SNC,” she said.
Wilson-Raybould said she had “heightened anxiety” around December meetings with Wernick, which she characterized as putting “extraordinary pressure on me to change my mind.”
She even told Wernick that she felt it was like the “Saturday Night Massacre,” a reference to departures from the administration of Richard Nixon in the face of the U.S. president’s attempted interference in judicial matters.
Wilson-Raybould refused to say why she resigned from cabinet as veterans affairs minister on Feb. 11. She said the government issued only a limited waiver for her to speak which she said restricted her comments.
But she said when Trudeau told her on Jan. 7 he was moving her out of the attorney general’s job, she told him she suspected it was because she’d refused to overturn the prosecution decision. She said Gerald Butts and the prime minister denied it was the case.
Asked if she still had confidence in Trudeau today, she said, “I’m not sure how that question is relevant.”
Trudeau said he would review her testimony before deciding if Wilson-Raybould could remain in the Liberal caucus.
Wilson-Raybould said she repeatedly warned them all that ongoing pressure to avoid criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin was improper and demanded that it stop.
She said Telford and Butts summoned her chief of staff, Jessica Prince, to a meeting on Dec. 18, where Butts told Prince they had to find a solution to the SNC issue. Reading from a transcript of Prince’s debriefing afterward with her minister, Wilson-Raybould said, “Gerry said ‘Jess, there is no solution here that doesn’t involve some interference.’ ”
According to Wilson-Raybould, Prince told her, “Katie was like, ‘We don’t want to debate legalities anymore’ … They kept being, like, ‘We aren’t lawyers, but there has to be some solution here.’ ”
Wilson-Raybould said Trudeau chief of staff Katie Telford and Butts seemed eager for her to retain a former Supreme Court of Canada judge to give outside legal advice on the SNC-Lavalin case. Telford, she said, told her chief of staff that "if Jody is nervous, we would of course line up all kinds of people to write op-eds saying that what she is doing is proper.”
In a Dec.19 phone call, she said Wernick told her she was on a collision course with the prime minister. A month later, she was shuffled out of the justice post.
Wilson-Raybould said it was “appropriate” for cabinet colleagues to draw her attention to “what they see as important policy considerations that are relevant to decisions about how a prosecution will proceed.”
“What is not appropriate is pressing the attorney general on matters that she or he cannot take into account, such as partisan political considerations, continuing to urge the attorney general to (change) her or his mind four months after the decision has been made, or suggesting a collision with the prime minister on these matters should be avoided,” she said.