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COMING UP: In half an hour, PM Justin Trudeau's former principal secretary Gerald Butts will begin testifying at the Commons justice committee about his actions in the SNC-Lavalin controversy. Follow what he says at CBC's live blog here: cbc.ca/2858641

Butts asked to testify after former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould appeared before the same committee a week ago, saying staff at the PMO and others applied inappropriate pressure on her to help SNC-Lavalin avoid criminal prosecution. Analysis here: cbc.ca/1.5043502

This afternoon, the House of Commons justice committee will hear from Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick for a 2nd time, as well as from Nathalie Drouin, deputy minister of justice and deputy attorney general, #cdnpoli

LATEST: Gerald Butts has taken his seat in front of the justice committee and proceedings are underway.

Conservative MP Michael Cooper asks that Butts be sworn in today, a rare request for the committee that would possibly open Butts to contempt of court accusations if he is later found to have misled MP members. The Cooper motion is defeated. Watch here: newsinteractives.cbc.ca/live-blog/butt…

Gerald Butts says he intends to tell the truth today, after motion to have him sworn in fails. Says he is at committee to explain what happened with Jody Wilson-Raybould from his point of view. Says everyone knew the SNC-Lavalin decision was the attorney general's alone to make.

Says '9,000-plus' jobs were at stake, but proper procedure was followed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his staff. Butts says no one asked or directed Wilson-Raybould to change her view. They were just encouraging her to seek outside legal advice, he says.

'It was not about second-guessing her decision,' Butts says of the request to seek outside legal advice. He says it was clear to everyone involved that the decision would remain in the hands of Jody Wilson-Raybould.

Butts says Jody Wilson-Raybould made the decision to endorse her officials' recommendation on the complicated matter in just 12 days last September. She had not told the PM's office or the Privy Council Office that she'd made a decision before she announced it publicly, he says.

Butts stresses repeatedly that the decision on prosecuting SNC-Lavalin would be Wilson-Raybould's alone, but 'it would be for several thousand people to live with.'

Butts says the former attorney general had not yet communicated her final decision in writing to the PMO, which was her usual habit, by mid-autumn and was continuing to make and accept meetings on the topic.

Butts says he met with Wilson-Raybould only once, and it was on this file. He also said they met at her request, and read the friendly-sounding text of her request. He said they talked in a collegial manner, and described the content of their meeting.

Butts says they hadn't seen each other in a while and were due for 'a good catch-up.' Says they talked about several topics on Dec. 5; this was only one of them. Wilson-Raybould never raised concerns about SNC-Lavalin. 'We parted that meeting as friends and colleagues.'

Butts is reading out the text of several emails and texts from Jody Wilson-Raybould that do not mention SNC-Lavalin. He adds: 'I believed the minister shared my interpretation of our dinner,' and was surprised to hear last week that she construed it as pressure.

He says there was only 'a brief conversation' about SNC-Lavalin during their dinner. In total, Butts says Wilson-Raybould had 2 meetings and 2 phone calls per month from all sources on the SNC-Lavalin file, and they were all about a request that she seek external legal advice.

Butts says he didn't consider that level of communication unusual on a file that involved 9,000 jobs. (The jobs issue relates to the fact that a criminal conviction could prevent SNC-Lavalin from bidding on federal contracts.)

Butts is now going on to discussions over the cabinet shuffle that saw Jody Wilson-Raybould removed from the Justice and Attorney General portfolio. Repeats Justin Trudeau's statement that if Scott Brison had not quit cabinet, Wilson-Raybould would still be in the job today.

Butts says he tried to convince Brison to stay, but failed. Then attention turned to finding a strong Nova Scotia MP to replace him in cabinet. Going on at great detail about factors considered in the shuffle. Says PM wanted signal sent that Indigenous file was important to him.

Plan was to send Jane Philpott to Treasury Board, Wilson-Raybould to Indigenous, and David Lametti to Justice. But then PM spoke to Philpott, who said Wilson-Raybould might see move as a demotion, and asked if the move was about SNC-Lavalin. Butts says that surprised him and PM.

Butts says he and fellow PMO staffer Katie Telford were there when the PM phoned Wilson-Raybould about the shuffle. Now reading his notes from the conversation. Says there was a 'long pause' before Wilson-Raybould said Justice and Attorney General was her 'dream job.'

Butts: Wilson-Raybould then did something he had never seen in 13 years: She turned down a cabinet portfolio. She said she opposed the Indian Act and could not be in charge of a department that administered it. She wanted to stay at Justice.

Says it was unprecedented for her to ask to stay in the job, and he advised the PM that it would be unwise to grant her request. Butts describes 'many' conversations about the matter with Jody Wilson-Raybould in the days that followed, and he knew they were at odds.

Says he had considered Jody Wilson-Raybould a valued colleague and friend in the previous five and a half years. 'The prime minister would have put a stop to it' if there had been any 'impropriety' over SNC-Lavalin, he said.

Butts says working at the PMO was the highest accomplishment of his professional life, and 'what is happening here is not fair to the people named in her statement.' He says he bears Jody Wilson-Raybould no malice, and thanks his friends for reaching out after his resignation.

Conservative MP Lisa Raitt is questioning Butts now. Raitt asks if he's aware the attorney general is not to be pressured on the basis of political considerations. He says he has no knowledge of Quebec votes being brought up by anyone in conversation with Wilson-Raybould.

Butts says 'it was the first time the law was ever being used,' that allowed for deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs), and the PMO wanted to be sure due consideration was being thought to all the options at Wilson-Raybould's disposal. Background: cbc.ca/1.5014271

Butts tells Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault he quit because he felt his presence was putting the PM, a friend of 30 years, in 'an impossible position... I was put in the position where I had to ask my colleagues to fight another colleague over accusations a colleague was making.'

NDP MP Murray Rankin is asking about Wilson-Raybould saying she asked to meet with Butts late last year over the 'barrage of people hounding my staff.' Butts repeats that was not his recollection of their dinner meeting.

Butts also denies he used the word 'solution' to Jessica Prince, when suggesting to Wilson-Raybould's chief of staff that her boss seek advice from someone like former Supreme Court of Canada chief justice Beverly McLachlin.

Rankin says the committee will need to hear again from Jody Wilson-Raybould, who told the MPs she couldn't discuss what was said during talks about the cabinet shuffle.

Why did PMO staff keep speaking to Wilson-Raybould's office after she had made her decision, Liberal MP Boissonault asks the witness. Butts repeats that PMO staff did not know it was final, because she had not, as was her habit, communicate it in writing to the PMO.

Butts on the push for outside legal advice on a SNC-Lavlin prosecution: 'We thought the bare minimum we needed to do, in order to look people in the eye who stood to lose their jobs, was to make sure we had a good reason... It's bare minimum to get the best advice you can.'

Answering a question on whether regional politics plays into federal decisions, Butts says it was becoming clear near the end of the NAFTA negotiations that dairy concessions would have a big impact on Quebec, yet that did not stop the federal Liberals from signing the agreement.

Answering another question from a Liberal MP, Colin Fraser this time, Butts says he personally has no opinion on what decision the former or current attorney general should make on an SNC-Lavalin remediation agreement. He adds that he's glad it isn't his decision to make.

Gerald Butts says it's not up to him to decide whether he can release the full texts of emails and text messages between him and Jody Wilson-Raybould to the committee, though he read freely from them in his opening statement.

'I learned a tremendous amount from her and I have a lot of respect for her,' Butts says of Jody Wilson-Raybould. 'This is a very unfortunate series of events.' Says exerting pressure on her in the way she described would be 'not in keeping with my character.'

Raitt asks how Butts still has access to his government texts and emails, after resigning his position early last week, before asking to testify. Does he still have his government phone? He says he doesn't; the messages were obtained by his legal counsel.

Butts says after the Globe and Mail published its first story about the Wilson-Raybould-SNC affair, which referred to their Chateau Laurier dinner, he was still in his PMO job, and 'my first instinct was to look at my phone' to see if their conversations were as he remembered.

Raitt asks if Butts thinks it acceptable for anyone in the PMO to suggest the minister's office reach out to the Director of Public Prosecutions, which had already made its call on the case. Reply: 'It just doesn't ring like something they would do, on this or any other matter.'

Gerald Butts: 'I like to think that Ms. [Katie] Telford and I were very conscious' of the implied power dynamic surrounding their interactions with the offices of federal cabinet ministers.

Butts denies telling Wilson-Raybould's staff: 'There is no solution here that does not involve some interference,' with regard to the SNC-Lavalin case. 'That is not what I said.' He again insists that asking the minister to consider outside legal advice is not interference,

Lisa Raitt moves that the committee tell the witness to produce copies of all communications between Wilson-Raybould's office and all the people at the PMO mentioned in the proceedings to date -- including Justin Trudeau. The chair asks her to write it out for circulation.

Revised motion: That the Office of the Privy Council produce all communications, texts, emails, written notes among Gerald Butts, former AG Jody Wilson-Raybould, Matthew Bouchard, Elder Marquez, Katie Telford, David Lametti, Jessica Prince, Ben Chin... (continues)

...Bill Morneau, and Justin Trudeau related to proceedings involving SNC-Lavalin, whether the devices used were government-owned or personal." Voting on motion underway.

Butts notes that he read the entire content of his communications with Jody Wilson-Raybould about the December 5th meeting into the record during his long statement.

Liberal MPs, who form the majority on the justice committee, vote against the motion to have the PMO messages produced. The motion falls 5-4 in a recorded vote.

NDP Charlie Angus asking about Wilson-Raybould saying PMO staff told her: 'You don't want to be on the wrong side of this prime minister' ... 'I'm not interested in legalities.' ... 'I don't like the law, it 's a Harper law.' Angus asks: 'Is she wrong? Did she make that up?'

In response to Conservative MP Luc Berthold about Wilson-Raybould saying the Quebec election was raised by the PMO, Butts says he is not aware of any communications between the government of Canada and the government of Quebec in the time frame being considered by the committee.

Conservative MP Michael Cooper is listing occasions on which getting an outside legal opinion was raised with Wilson-Raybould by several people in the PMO including Butts; she said no every time. Butts says they were seeking to understand the AG's 'reticence' on getting advice.

Butts calls these 'honest discussions.' The former principal secretary to PM Justin Trudeau asks in return: If this was wrong, why are we having this discussion now and not at the end of September or October or November or December?

Remind that you can dive deeper into today's testimony here: cbc.ca/1.5044709

NDP's Murray Rankin reads from Wilson-Raybould's testimony that she repeatedly told PMO staff that her decision was final. He asked if Butts did not think continued communication with the AG crossed a line. Butts replies that 20 points of contact over 4 months was 'not a lot.'

Butts also says Wilson-Raybould had a duty to tell Justin Trudeau if she felt that she or her staff were being unfairly pressured by PMO staff. NDP's Charlie Angus says if Wilson-Raybould told the truth, Butts' integrity and the PM's integrity are both in question.

Butts: 'I am not going to cast aspersions on a former colleague.' He says he has told the truth at the committee today.

Butts says it his understanding that a final decision is not possible until the court process plays out and the judge rules. He says 'it was incumbent' on PMO staff to continue putting relevant information before the AG given the stakes 'and it was incumbent on her to hear it.'

Butts says he was greatly surprised, after Jody Wilson-Raybould objected to the planned cabinet move, to learn that she had placed such a 'dark' interpretation on the offer of the Indigenous Services portfolio.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says she 'completely' believes Jody Wilson-Raybould and asks why Butts has made no mention of the role of the Clerk of the Privy Council. Butts says the accusations about Michael Wernick's actions are 'completely inconsistent with his character.'

Butts made the reply in reaction to Wilson-Raybould's contention that Wernick told her in September: 'SNC is going back and forth with the (director of public prosecutions), that they want more information,' and that the firm's lawyer Frank Iacobucci 'is not a shrinking violet.'

Gerald Butts notes that remediation agreements or DPAs were brought in because other nations had them and Canada needed them too 'in the economic best interests of the country.' Says they are not 'a get-out-of-jail card' but a 'court-approved reform process' to protect jobs.

Testimony of Gerald Butts concludes at 12:28 pm ET.