PM adviser delayed robocall witness interview
Jenni Byrne sought legal advice during probe, email shows
POSTMEDIA NEWS AND OTTAWA CITIZEN One of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s top advisers instructed a potential key witness in the robocalls investigation to delay an interview with an Elections Canada investigator until she could obtain legal advice.
Jenni Byrne, who was the Conservatives’ national campaign manager during the 2011 election, emailed campaign worker Andrew Prescott on Nov. 30, 2011, asking him not to talk to an investigator looking into the “Pierre Poutine” robocall until she had talked with the party’s lawyer.
In December, Prescott, whose computer was later linked to the robocall through web data logs, consulted with party lawyer Arthur Hamilton, as instructed by the party, but he didn’t speak with the investigator until more than two months later — on Feb. 24, 2012. That was the day after the Citizen and Postmedia News reported that the fraudulent election-day robocall had been sent through a Conservative votercontact firm.
In early March, under intense media scrutiny, Prescott hired a lawyer, who advised him not to speak with the agency, and he cancelled a planned meeting with investigators.
Byrne sent the Nov. 30 email in reply to Prescott’s earlier message, titled “RE: Fake message during Election.”
Prescott had been contacted by Elections Canada investigator Allan Mathews, who was trying to find who was responsible for electionday calls directing opposition supporters in Guelph, Ont., to the wrong polling location. Prescott had written to a local Conservative to let the party know.
Prescott’s email was forwarded to Byrne, then the party’s director of political operations.
“Please hold off doing anything until I consult with a lawyer,” she wrote back. Prescott did just that and did not respond to Mathews’ request.
Her email was copied to Guelph Conservative campaign manager Ken Morgan and Chris Rougier, who worked directly for Byrne at campaign headquarters in Ottawa during the campaign. Rougier was responsible for the Constituent Information Management System, the party’s voter-tracking database that investigators believe was the source of phone numbers used in the robocalls.
The email shows the involvement of the Conservatives’ top political official in managing fallout from the robocalls affair, months before Canadians learned of the investigation through media reports, and raises questions about the party’s repeated claims it has co-operated fully with the Elections Canada investigation.
Byrne now works in the Prime Minister’s Office as deputy chief of staff.
Neither Byrne, the Conservative party nor Prescott responded to requests for comment Thursday.
Byrne’s email is consistent with testimony Mathews gave this week in an Ottawa courtroom related to an attempt by the Citizen and two other media organizations to lift a publication ban on court documents that detail the investigation.
Mathews testified that he first tried to contact Prescott at the end of November or early December 2011, leaving him a voice mail. Lawyer Hamilton returned the call.
“I got a return call at some point from Arthur Hamilton and then we essentially batted the ball back and forth across the net in an attempt for me to ask questions of this individual,” Mathews said.
During cross-examination by Citizen lawyer Richard Dearden, Mathews said it had taken several more months for Prescott, via Hamilton, to agree to an interview.
“We discussed-slash-played telephone tag until just before the media stories came, at the end of February,” Mathews said. “Several days before that we finally arranged for a telephone conference with myself, Hamilton and Prescott.”
Prescott later retained Guelph lawyer Matthew Stanley, who then cancelled a followup interview scheduled for March 8 and declined Mathews’ request to reschedule, according to court documents.
Prescott served as deputy campaign manager for Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke. He was also the campaign’s contact point with Edmonton voice-broadcasting company RackNine.
Mathews started investigating the fraudulent Guelph robocall two days after the election, filing a series of court orders for telephone records that eventually led him to RackNine, which had been used to place the call.
On Nov. 23, he served a production order at the company’s Edmonton office. On Nov. 29, a day before the email from Byrne, RackNine’s owner, Matt Meier, provided Mathews with records of 10 phone campaigns the Burke campaign conducted using his company.
In March 2012, Meier, who says he had no idea his company’s service was being used for fraudulent purposes, sent Elections Canada a 23-page report based on his firm’s Internet session logs, which linked the “Pierre Poutine” call to the Internet Protocol address used by Burke’s headquarters.
Prescott has vehemently denied any involvement with the fraudulent robocalls, saying he used his RackNine account only for legitimate and legal campaign calls. He says the controversy over the investigation cost him his job as systems administrator at St. Joseph Health Centre in Guelph. He subsequently moved to Alberta.
Burke campaign manager Ken Morgan, who has not spoken to Elections Canada, moved to Kuwait in the summer of 2012. Campaign worker Trent Blanchette also has declined to speak with investigators.
Elections Canada has called on the government to give investigators the power to compel testimony. The Conservatives have promised to introduce changes to the Elections Act in time for the next election but have not said what changes they plan.
In April, the agency charged Michael Sona, a Guelph campaign worker, with breaching the Elections Act, a violation that carries a fine of $5,000 or up to five years in prison. Sona says he is being used as a scapegoat by the party and intends to fight the charge in court.
The case against Sona hinges on statements from six Conservative staffers who have told Elections Canada that Sona bragged about participating in the Guelph robocall in social conversations after the election.
Five of the staffers came to the attention of Mathews thanks to Hamilton, who sat in on the interviews as counsel for the party, which has raised questions about the independence of the investigation.
Mathews testified Wednesday that the witnesses showed up for the interviews with Hamilton.
“They presented themselves with him in tow,” he said.