Trudeau's Libel Action Reveals His Unfitness for Office

Andrew Scheer, Leader of the Opposition, has received a letter from JustinTrudeau's lawyer notifying him of the Prime Minister's intention to bring a libel suit against Scheer for statements made by Scheer concerning pressure brought to bear on former Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould, in relation to the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption.

The letter states, in part:

On March 29, 2019 you issued a press statement [that] contained highly defamatory comments about Prime Minister Trudeau. ...

In particular:

1. “These documents and recordings are concrete evidence that proves Justin Trudeau led a campaign to politically interfere with SNC-Lavalin’s criminal prosecution.” 2. “Ms. Wilson-Raybould repeatedly told the Prime Minister and his top officials that their actions were ‘entirely inappropriate’ and amounted to ‘political interference’. Despite her objections, the Clerk of the Privy Council pressured her and made it clear that her job was on the line.” 3. “Justin Trudeau also told Canadians what he knew to be false. He knew that his Attorney General had serious concerns about his plan to get SNC-Lavalin off of serious criminal charges. But he looked Canadians in the eye and told them that no one had raised concerns with him. This is false and he owes Canadians an explanation.” 4. “The entire SNC-Lavalin scandal is corruption on top of corruption on top of corruption.Two cabinet ministers have resigned on principle and both Justin Trudeau’s top political advisor and his top civil servant have resigned in disgrace. The Prime Minister has lost the moral authority to govern and must resign.”

If this goes to court, Trudeau will either have to admit complete ignorance of what Butts, Wernick and other members of his staff were doing when they pressured Wilson-Raybould to order the Director of Public Prosecutions to grant SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement, or he will have to deny what the taped conversation between Wilson-Raybould and David Wernick proves to be a fact; namely that Wernick cleary warned Wilson-Raybould that she either complied with the Prime Minister's wish in the matter of ending the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin or she'd be fired as Justice Minister and Attorney General.

 Either way, Trudeau's unfitness to head the government will be demonstrated. Indeed, the fact that he has threatened to bring such an idiotic suit against the Leader of the Opposition proves his unfitness for office. Any actual court proceedings would be a redundancy. Furthermore, by attempting by means of court action to deny the undeniable, Trudeau proves that he is liar intent on lying about the lies he's told. 

Trudeau has effectively sabotaged his own chances in the October general election, and if the Liberal Party wishes to be regarded as a realistic contender in the forthcoming election, rather than a cult headed by a dim-witted dictator wannabe, they'd better act soon to find a new leader.

Related:
Ottawa Citizen: Scheer repeats alleged libel, goads Trudeau to follow through on lawsuit
The Tyree: Why Has Trudeau Risked So Much for SNC-Lavalin?
Ottawa Citizen: Philpott says Trudeau's caucus expulsions violated law
The Atlantic: Justin Trudeau Falls From Grace
National Post: Gurney: Trudeau's lawsuit threat takes Liberals' SNC-Lavalin response to even dumber depths
Ottawa Sun: LILLEY: Scheer sticks to his guns on SNC-Lavalin

Gerald Butts Offers Serpentine Explanation for Quitting as Trudeau's Brain

Asked by Liberal MP, Randy Boissonnault, during Wedenesday's Parliamentary Justice Committee hearing why he quit his job as the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary, Gerald Butts offered this gem of snake-like obfuscation:

I think I was put in a position where I had to ask my colleagues to fight another colleague over accusations a colleague was making, and I think that put the prime minister in an impossible position given the nature of our friendship.

Which interpreted, means:

I was put in a position = 

Justin wanted this.

I had to* ask my colleagues to fight another colleague =

I persuaded various cabinet minsters to make snide comments about then Justice Minister and Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould, with the intention of making the obdurate bitch resign from cabinet, thereby making way for some malleable tool who would follow directions and tell the Director of Public Prosecutions to drop the prosecution of SNC-Lavelin on charges of bribery and corruption, as conviction would have detrimental consequences for the Prime Minister.

over accusations a colleague was making =

The accusation being the fully justified objections that Jodie Wilson-Raybould had addressed to the Prime Minister and others, concerning efforts by Butts, the Head of the Civil Service, the Minister of Finance, the Deputy Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister's legal advisers, and the Prime Minister himself to interfere in the independent action of the Attorney General and the Federal Prosecution Service concerning the ongoing prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption. 

and I think that put the prime minister in an impossible position given the nature of our friendship =

It would have been totally out of character for me to have instigated the campaign of vilification against Jodie Wilson-Raybould without the Prime Minister's knowledge and approval, therefore, as a longtime close friend of the Prime Minister I am resigning to create the impression that the whole dirty scheme was entirely my own idea and carried out contrary to the commitment of the Prime Minister (if any) to the rule of law, even when the application of the law causes him a massive pain in the arse.

———

* Note the reference to compulsion: "I had to." In other words, what Butts did appears to have been something contrary to his own judgement of what was right, and must, therefore, have been ordered by the Prime Minister.

Related:

CBC: SNC-Lavalin loses bid for judicial review of prosecution decision

The Truth That Justin Trudeau's "Brain," Did Not Mean to Tell

Gerald Butts, former Principal Private Secretary to Prime Minister Trudeau, testifying before the Parliamentary Justice Committee to address charges that the Prime Minister's Office had improperly interfered in the work of the former Attorney General, opened with the words:

I can assure all members of this committee that I will tell the truth.

Oh good oh, now we can be confident of learning the unvarnished truth.

Butts then continued:

I would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands of the Algonquin people.

Wow! From a Prime Minister with a former Principal Secretary so sensitive to First Nations sensibilities, how could it be true, as alleged by the father of former Justice Minister and Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, the first First Nations person to serve in the Federal Government, that Justin Trudeau had kicked said Attorney General in the teeth?

In fact, from such a source, it seems hardly worthwhile to consider the specifics of his testimony. The guy is all spin and groveling flattery. But one thing he makes absolutely clear is that, in his view, government is not about facts and logic, but about ends. To the desired and predetermined ends, all facts and logic must be made to conform. And if that effort to create the Prime Minister's own reality does not at first succeed, then there must be meetings, and more meetings, and consultations, text messages, pressure even, and perhaps some interference in the course of justice, until the bullshit ultimately baffles brains. No wonder then that the Prime Minister's brains seem to be made of mush.

Clearly many liberals want out of this mess, and in particular, want new leadership. In 2015, after failed attempts by Martin, Dion, and Ignatieff, Trudeau, the man with the looks, the name, and the trendy SJW agenda, swept the liberals to power. But the promise far exceeded the performance, and in the wake of LavScam, the Libs face the possibility of a near wipe-out in the forthcoming fall election, their standing in the polls falling by the day. The sooner Trudeau steps aside to make way for a steady hand and level head at the helm, the better.

For the Conservatives, exactly the opposite consideration holds. The multi-balls-up Trudeau is their best hope of power under the leadership of the very pleasant and ineffectual-seeming Andrew Scheer. In the coming weeks, we may expect, therefore, to see the Tories offering little more than half-hearted criticism of Trudeau. Indeed, they must surely be hoping to see Gerald Butts, the PM's erstwhile brain, back at the PMO filling the PM's ear with soothing flattery and dreams of endless power.

Related:

Macleans: Paul Wells

... Taken together, Butts’s testimony adds up to a portrait of a governing inner circle that would not ever take a “no” from a director of public prosecutions as final. They would not ever take Jody Wilson-Raybould’s refusal to correct the prosecutor as final. They could not believe an important decision could be made in a week and a half. They could not, themselves, manage a cabinet shuffle in a much longer span of time, except by making a mockery of its central strategic imperative. And they can provide no evidence for the jobs claim that, to this day, Gerald Butts still uses to browbeat anyone who would disagree with the government’s behaviour throughout this saga. This was Team Trudeau’s best day since the saga began, because at least it featured somebody close to the Prime Minister speaking in complete sentences in a setting outside a campaign rally or a space-exploration news conference. I still found very little of it encouraging. ...

And this:

Trudeau's offer of Indigenous Services to Wilson-Raybould like 'asking Nelson Mandela to administer apartheid'

And this:

NaPo: Andrew Coyne

More than once in the course of his testimony to the Commons justice committee Gerald Butts said that he was not there to call anyone names or to cast aspersions on the character of Jody Wilson-Raybould. Which is why the prime minister’s former principal secretary confined himself to depicting her as sloppy, closed-minded and unco-operative, while heavily implying the former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada was a serial fabulist who said nothing to anyone about attempts to interfere with her authority over criminal prosecutions until after she was shuffled out of her “dream job” in January. Otherwise he might have gotten really nasty. ...

And this:

NaPo: Colby Cosh

...The government has tried to explain its belabouring of Wilson-Raybould as being perfectly appropriate. She was supposed to verrrry carefully consider the fate of 9,000 SNC-Lavalin jobs and a head office in Quebec, and then consider it again, and then consider it again. Butts tells us that they weren’t looking for a particular politically convenient answer, mind you.  They just stayed after her to keep reconsidering the answer she kept giving, explicitly or implicitly. They reassured her at every turn that the decision was hers. And then they got rid of her and made it someone else’s. ...

T


How much more punishment will the Liberals absorb before ditching Trudeau?