Wilson-Raybould and Cohen: a tale of two testimonies

Editor’s note: This column has been updated.

In two national capitals, two former insiders told two devastating stories under oath Wednesday that shook the foundations of their two national governments. We have not seen anything like it.

Early in the day in Washington, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, detailed the president’s directed deceits: payoffs to conceal a relationship and betray campaign finance law, concealed negotiations to build a tower in Moscow to make him even richer, the racism of the most powerful man in the world, even threats to suppress his grades in high school.

All of it in service he now regrets.

Later in Ottawa, Justin Trudeau’s former justice minister and attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, detailed the prime minister and his officials’ extraordinary pressures: to violate her independence, to overturn SNC-Lavalin’s prosecution to pursue a mediated settlement and ultimately to act one way in order to keep her job.

All of it in service she regrets losing.

The testimony in Washington, it seems, we have to sadly shrug about.

The tribal nature of American politics likely means Cohen will convince no one to turn on Trump and will only embolden Trump supporters to decry and dismiss the testimony as the repentance of a liar headed for jail. This is just the appetizer of the main course served up soon by special prosecutor Robert Mueller in his investigation. There is more affirmation than new damage today to the Trump brand.

The testimony in Ottawa, though, we can shiver about.

There is considerable damage to the Trudeau brand with Wilson-Raybould’s firm, logical, evidenced and reasoned presentation. Unlike America, there is no particular Canadian political division in this controversy, unless you count the separatist Bloc Quebecois. Unlike Cohen, Wilson-Raybould has much to lose in her candor and yet risked it all. And unlike the mess in America, this was no appetizer; this was the main course, and it will feed our country as it heads toward an election.

If, as reports indicate, Trump was shaking his fist at the TV set as he sat in Vietnam to watch Cohen testify, Trudeau must have held his head in his hands or curled up under the desk in a fetal position. Nothing like this has hit him.

He popped up an hour later to reiterate that he and his team acted “appropriately and professionally” and that he had to “completely disagree” with her testimony – even though he said he hadn’t seen it and, interestingly, would not decide until he reviews her presentation if she should stay in caucus or if he will permit her to run for the Liberals in the next election. 

It remains his reputation against hers, and to date he doesn’t have as many public defenders.

Wilson-Raybould, now a Vancouver-Granville MP resigned from cabinet, essentially reduced the prime minister from his front-facing sunny persona to any other politician who will cut a deal over the niceties or even the legalities.

She cited meeting after meeting, call after call, text after text from his officials that persistently sought on his behalf reconsideration of a decision made by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada to proceed with the trial of SNC-Lavalin on allegations of a decade-long trail of corporate misbehaviour with Libya.

Pressure is, of course, in the eyes and ears of the receiver. The prime minister, his now-departed principal secretary, his spokespeople and his surprisingly partisan clerk of the privy council can claim there was nothing undue applied. But that isn’t for them to say; it is strictly for her to reveal. And in Wilson-Raybould’s opening statement alone, the narrative of pressure was impartially palpable and believable, trapped in her version of the “Saturday night massacre” of the Richard Nixon era of firing the special prosecutor as he faced impeachment.

The many faces of what she called “consistent and sustained” pressure – 10 meetings, 10 phone calls, she recounted – included the finance minister’s chief of staff, Ben Chin, Christy Clark’s spokesman as B.C. premier and now the chief of staff for Finance Minister Bill Morneau; minister Morneau himself; Gerald Butts, Katie Telford, Mathieu Bouchard, Amy Archer and Elder Marques in the prime minister’s office; and Michael Wernick, the clerk of the privy council.

And, of course, the prime minister, who did not like the idea that Wilson-Raybould was bowing up when he noted a provincial election was imminent, that job losses would occur, that he was a Quebec MP and that he wanted her “to find a solution.”

Her statement about the “extraordinary pressure” was insightful into the way crises are handled in this administration: entreaties from several sides, repeated attempts to get no to become yes, suggestions to get legal opinions to overturn officials, threats to get the task done that triggered “a high level of anxiety,” even offers of getting supportive opinion pieces planted in media if she would change her mind. At least once she said enough was enough, but the pressure continued.

Wilson-Raybould was limited in how extensively she could testify – only until her shuffle to the veterans affairs portfolio – but told the parliamentary committee she believed she lost her job as justice minister and attorney general because her mind would not change.

She was told January 7 by Trudeau she would be moving on. She wondered aloud to him if it had to do with SNC-Lavalin, which her office had been told already would be a priority for discussion of the minister who would replace her.

The prime minister denied that was the case.

She later suggested to his principal secretary that the SNC-Lavalin issue sank her. Butts, who last week resigned, then asked her if she was questioning the integrity of the prime minister.

If she did not say so at the time, it seems we have that answer today.

Kirk LaPointe is the editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.