WHAT WAS SPELLED OUT IN (POLICIES) ABOUT WIPING HARD DRIVES.

then at least one line of it: We surely didn’t do anything wrong (they are, after all, pleading not guilty) but if we did, how were we to know it was wrong?

The two, respectively the one-two power in McGuinty’s office, are charged with three counts each, all related to their alleged destruction of documents relating to the former government’s billion-dollar decision to cancel and relocate two gas-fired power plants in Mississauga and Oakville.

As my former colleague and frequent National Post contributor Kelly McParland wrote me in a note the other day, “This trial is amazing … the defence seems to be ‘Yes, I’m intelligent and talented enough to be the top operative in the office of the Premier of Ontario … but I’m not bright enough to understand … when the province’s top bureaucrat emphasizes” the need to preserve relevant records.

The former top bureaucrat, Peter Wallace, of course, did just that in a Jan. 31, 2013, memo he had sent to Livingston, who was hoping to get an administrative password purportedly to erase his personal information.

Wallace reluctantly agreed to give him the special password, but wanted Livingston alerted to his record-keeping obligations.

Wallace had him warned that with a Freedom of Information appeal underway involving McGuinty’s office and an outstanding order for documents from a legislative committee, it would