Thread by @josh_wingrove

Ok, so, the whole Jody Wilson-Raybould tl;dr if you're just logging on. (A warning this thread is also too long.)

Basically, she has now decided that this is a matter of principle, politics be damned.

First, our latest story is here: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

She took direct aim at Trudeau, many of his most senior aides and the finance minister for, in her view, trying to interfere in her file to help SNC-Lavalin.

Note she is still a Liberal MP, and was until recently in their cabinet. It was explosive.

She laid out a very lawyerly, detailed chronology of pressure from people including Trudeau himself, Gerry Butts, Katie Telford, others in that office, Bill Morneau and Ben Chin.

She alleges that over three months, all these people leaned on her to help SNC.

Specifically, she says they were looking for a way to revisit a decision not to give them a deferred prosecution agreement, or DPA, to settle corruption charges.

She said she faced "veiled threats" if she didn't revisit her decision.

She said she thinks it would have been unlawful for her to intervene in that case based on political reasons.

In other words, she implied she had no legal authority to do what she was being leaned on to do.

She said the actions of PMO etc were inappropriate but not illegal.

She said it was Chin (who, like her, is a prominent figure in BC and was close with Butts) who first reached out to her office. "He wanted to talk about SNC and what we could do, if anything, to address this."

A bunch of similar conversations followed -- 10 calls, 10 meetings in total, she said. She says those conversations variously cited the Quebec election, job losses, fear of the company relocating, and the Liberals' own reelection hopes.

She really took issue with a Sept. 17 meeting with Trudeau. It was on another thing but she said he raised the issue immediately and told her: "I am an MP for Quebec, the member for Papineau."

His staff also suggested an "informal reach-out" by her to the prosecutor, she said.

"We can have the best policy in the world but we need to get reelected," one staffer said, according to Wilson-Raybould. She grew tired of "the barrage of people hounding me and my staff.''

She met with Butts in December. "I raised how I needed everybody to stop talking to me about SNC, as I had made up my mind and that the engagements were inappropriate."

She had texted with her chief of staff. She read the chief's account of a meeting with Butts & Telford. According to that account, Butts said "there is no solution here that does not involve some interference" and Telford said: "we don't want to debate legalities anymore."

``What is inappropriate is the long, sustained discussions about the job losses after it is very clear that I had made my decision."

``Where they became very clearly inappropriate was when political issues came up -- like the election in Quebec, like losing the election were SNC to move its headquarters."

She twice declined to say if she still had confidence in Trudeau.

She evoked Watergate and Nixon at one point.

She said cabinet discussed DPAs generally -- a "tool," she said -- but only discussed the SNC case on the periphery. She said PMO repeatedly tried to get her to hire external legal counsel, and offered cover-fire for her in the form of editorials supporting an intervention.

She ducked a question on whether she personally agrees with DPAs but she sure didn't sound like she liked the idea of them. She said the question wasn't relevant.

I'll note that she danced around some questions. She talked a bit about resigning but later said she couldn't discuss it. So, it remains quite unclear why she didn't resign on principle. "I took the prime minister at his word," she kept saying.

I was left the impression that she stayed in the job, and later with cabinet, because she thought it was maybe some form of insurance that the government would not intervene in the SNC case. But it's unclear to me.

I'll note too that she cited her indigenous heritage as a factor, saying that too often indigenous peoples have been impacted by failure to uphold the rule of law.

Hence, she saw this as a matter of principle and dug in.

Basically, she said she made a decision basically off the top to not intervene and found the ensuing three months of pressure inappropriate.

It was kind of ships-in-the-night.

On one side, a bunch of political operatives at the highest level looking at a company, jobs, Quebec, elections, etc, cooking up schemes.

On the other, an AG basically saying sorry, law's the law, decision's mine, go away.

And then that AG was shuffled. Then this all blew up. (The Globe's source remains unclear.) Then she quit cabinet, and is (somehow) still in caucus.

And today poured gas on the political fire.

Trudeau will speak tonight.

Morneau's spokesman issued a statement by email.

"It is Minister Morneau’s responsibility to protect and promote the creation of jobs across Canada and he will continue to raise such important issues with all his cabinet colleagues...." [continued...]

"...At no time did Minister Morneau nor members of his office pressure the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General into making any decision regarding the prosecution of SNC Lavalin."

(That statement is presumably also a response from Chin, who works for Morneau.)

I've asked for comment from the others she's named. Nothing yet.

She also confirmed that Trudeau and his office never directed her to intervene, for what it's worth. (Trudeau has said that.)

Correction to earlier tweet: she *said it* evoked Watergate and Nixon.

She said she didn't expect Wernick to be at her meeting with the PM. (And adds that, in fairness, she didn't ask that he leave.)

This is still going.

She says there would be "merit" to discuss separating the roles of AG and Minister of Justice.

ie: for the love of god, don't put others in the same position as I was in.

Q: What's the ideal candidate for a DPA? JWR: It's right there in the criminal code.

Annnnnnd that's it. Nearly 4 hours later, it wraps.

Oops now she's talking to reporters.

She says she was elected as a Liberal and that hasn't changed. "I don't anticipate being kicked out of caucus," she says.

Time will tell?

"My testimony before the justice committee speaks for itself," she says.

That is either inadvertent or a VERY funny reference to Trudeau saying earlier this month that her presence in cabinet "should speak for itself." She publicly quit the next day.

That was somehow only two weeks ago.

Andrew Scheer calls on Trudeau to resign for obstruction of justice. He cites "bordering-on-illegal pressure," though I note Wilson-Raybould herself said she believes the actions of Trudeau's office weren't illegal.

I imagine Trudeau's office saw it this way: if SNC went down, cut jobs or faced a takeover bid, Quebec media would losssssse its minnnnddddd. Quebec is an important battleground. And Trudeau would be stuck referring Quebeckers to an English-speaking AG from Vancouver for comment.

Scheer is also saying he'd "never" intervene in a case like this. Ie: Sorry, SNC, you're on your own with Scheer.

This is a key issue in this whollllle thing: it's playing much differently in Quebec than the rest of Canada.

Scheer also says Wernick should resign.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh speaking now.

"The prime minister and his office were disregarding the law and willing to interfere in the prosecution of executives for a massive, powerful corporation."

(For what it matters, this is not actually true.)

The executives' cases are different, and some have had their charges either partially or fully tossed out recently because of trial delays. (Incidentally, would it not be reasonable to ask what responsibility Wilson-Raybould should bear for the system failing to prosecute those?)

Singh stopping short of doing what Scheer is doing in calling for Trudeau's resignation. Says a public inquiry is needed. ``Maybe he might need to [resign], but what we need is to get to the truth,'' Singh said.

"This is not about the jobs" at SNC-Lavalin, Singh says.

So, a reminder, Quebec is a big tossup in the 2019 election. SNC is based there. And the other two major parties are making little or no effort tonight to hedge at all and say they also support SNC-Lavalin or whatever.

"What we heard today were self-interest questions" driving the Liberals' desire to intervene, Singh says -- not jobs.

(An aside: @RE_Brosseau is standing behind Singh. I'd be curious to hear her views on all this.)

Trudeau's due to speak shortly.
Meanwhile, my dinner: celery, broccoli, carrots and one of those prepackaged cheese things.

Trudeau is speaking now

He's at Brebeuf, btw. That's the school he went to as a kid. It features prominently in his autobiography. Anyhow.

"It was important for Jody Wilson-Raybould to speak openly at the justice committee today," he says.

"I and my staff always acted appropriately and professionally. I therefore completely disagree with the former attorney general's characterization of events. Our government will always focus on jobs and our economy,'' he says.

He says (or implies) also they were worried about pensions of retired SNC workers.

"The decision concerning SNC-Lavalin was Jody Wilson-Raybould's and hers alone," Trudeau says.

Trudeau says he looks forward to the investigation by the ethics commissioner to "clear the air."

He is basically sticking with his story, staying the course and also not taking a particularly harsh or critical tone with Wilson-Raybould.

So, neither chastened nor combative.

Trudeau's message, in French: "Canadians will have a clear choice to make in a few months" between a Liberal Party that will stand up for jobs, or the party that "is still the party of Stephen Harper."

Shorter Trudeau: I disagree with JWR, I'd do it all over again, I'm about jobs, choose between me and Harper 2.0.

And that's it for the PM.

(Which is to say, that's it for his remarks. Draw no other prediction from that tweet!)

So:

* Scheer calls for Trudeau's resignation and an RCMP investigation
* Singh calls for public inquiry, stops short of demanding resignation
* Trudeau doesn't resign, says it'll all be up to voters in an election this fall

(I'll note that @PnPCBC's token conservative on their panel, @powerstim, agrees with the rest of the panel that Scheer "overreached" by demanding the PM's resignation.)

I hereby end the longest thread in the world