RCMP confirms Trudeau, cabinet under investigation for SNC-Lavalin bribery scandal: report
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According to Democracy Watch, the RCMP confirmed ‘it is investigating the allegation that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former Finance Minister Bill Morneau, [and] some members of their staff… obstructed justice by pressuring then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to stop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin in 2018.’
(LifeSiteNews) — The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have for the first time since 2019 confirmed it is investigating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet for potential obstruction of justice concerning a bribery scandal involving a large Canadian engineering firm.
In a press release sent out today, the non-profit advocacy group Democracy Watch said it got a response to an Access to Information Act (ATIA) request it filed with the RCMP on July 27, 2022, about the SNC-Lavalin affair and Trudeau.
According to Democracy Watch, the RCMP response letter, which is dated March 25, 2023, “confirms it is investigating the allegation that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former Finance Minister Bill Morneau, some members of their staff, and former Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick, obstructed justice by pressuring then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to stop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin in 2018.”
The response letter is 96-pages long but contains 86-pages which are fully redacted, as the matter is “currently under investigation.”
The only visible portion is Democracy Watch’s 5-page February 2021 letter which it sent to the RCMP.
“This is the first public statement the RCMP has made about the situation since August 14, 2019 when it stated that it was examining the situation carefully,” said Democracy Watch.
Jody Wilson-Raybould was Trudeau’s former attorney general of Canada. Back in 2019, she contended that both Trudeau and his top Liberal officials had inappropriately applied pressure to her for four months, to directly intervene in the criminal prosecution of Montreal-based global engineering firm SNC-Lavalin, relating to a scandal involving corruption and bribery charges connected to government contracts it once had in Libya.
Wilson-Raybould testified in early 2019 to Canada’s justice committee that she believed she was moved from her then-justice cabinet posting to veterans’ affairs due to the fact she did not grant a request from SNC-Lavalin’s for a deferred prosecution agreement, rather than a criminal trial.
Of note is that a criminal conviction would have banned the company from getting any government contracts for 10 years.
On February 12, 2019, Wilson-Raybould resigned from veterans’ affairs, and Treasury Board president Jane Philpott quit in March of the same year. They both cited a lack of confidence in the Liberal government’s handling of the scandal.