Have all the information they need. So we asked them
Evidence is ruled out as ministers continue to refuse requests for documents
before a hearing in January 2019 with the case costing taxpayers at least £750,000. In a letter last week, Deputy First Minister John Swinney said
We have been frustrated at every turn by the Scottish Government and John Swinney is simply misleading the committee and parliament to suggest that he has co-operated.
We can’t have a full picture of the Judicial Review without seeing the advice that informed the Scottish Government’s decisions.
Conservatives winning two parliamentary votes for this to happen. Scotland’s public deserve to know the whole truth of what happened and why £500,000 of their money had to be paid to Salmond.”
Ms Sturgeon is due to give evidence next week and her spokesman yesterday said she was “relishing” the opportunity to take on “absurd, contradictory and baseless” theories of a political conspiracy against Mr Salmond.
He said: “The First Minister is relieved she will at long last get to appear before the committee. She knows and accepts that the scrutiny of her and the Scottish Government’s handling of the complaints made about Mr Salmond’s behaviour is entirely legitimate. However, she is relishing the opportunity to answer the questions asked of her and to set the record straight.
“She also looks forward to taking head-on the absurd, contradictory and – as we started to see this week, utterly baseless – conspiracy theories that have been allowed to spread, unchecked and unchallenged.
“The First Minister has been subjected to a litany of smear, innuendo and outright falsehoods throughout this affair.”
SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, who is married to Ms Sturgeon, will appear before the committee tomorrow after being called back to clarify his evidence.
He last appeared in December but opposition MSPS have questioned aspects of his evidence. He had told the committee his message to another SNP executive encouraging people to pressure police in London to escalate inquiries into Mr Salmond was a lapse in judgment but denied any other messages similar in tone. We revealed last month, inset, that Salmond had written to the committee raising “serious concerns” about that evidence. Ms Baillie wrote to Crown Office officials urging them to investigate whether he had perjured himself during his first appearance.
The Crown Office said yesterday: “The correspondence is under consideration.”
We will not be able to produce a complete account of our view of what happened as we will not be able to refer to counsel’s opinion because we never saw counsel’s opinion.