We See Some Evidence That The PMO Interfered With Elections Canada Investigation Of Robocalls .... (are you surprised?)
Former Ministerial staffer, Michael Sona insists that he was thrown under the bus by the PMO. A newly released email shows that the PMO interfered in the investigation of RoboCalls by Elections Canada:
OTTAWA – 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 Guelph campaign worker Andrew Prescott
on Nov. 30, 2011, to ask him not to talk to an investigator looking
into the “Pierre Poutine” robocall until she had a chance to talk to the
party’s lawyer.Prescott, whose computer was later linked to the robocall
through web data logs, consulted with party lawyer Arthur Hamilton, as
instructed by the party, in December, but he didn’t speak with the
investigator until more than two months later – on Feb. 24, 2012, the
day after the Ottawa Citizen and Postmedia News reported that the fraudulent election-day robocall had been sent through a Conservative voter-contact 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 written to a local Conservative to let the
party know that he had been contacted by Elections Canada investigator
Allan Mathews, who was trying to find who was responsible for election
day calls directing opposition supporters in Guelph to the wrong polling
location.
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’s 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.
o.canada.com
