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“In response, I explained to him the law and what I have the ability to do and not do under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act . . . . I told him that I had done my due diligence and made up my mind on SNC and that I was not going to interfere with the decision of the DPP (director of public prosecutions).”

To that, she said Trudeau told her “that there is an election in Quebec and I am an MP in Quebec — the member for Papineau.” Not surprisingly, JWR said she was “taken aback.”

The pressure, what she called “a barrage of people hounding me and my staff,” continued, she said.

On Dec. 19, Wernick told JWR “that the PM is quite determined, quite firm but he wants to know why the DPA route which Parliament provided for isn’t being used,” she told the committee. “He said: ‘I think he is gonna find a way to get it done one way or another. So, he is in that kinda mood and I wanted you to be aware of that.’

“I issued a stern warning because as the AG, I cannot act in a manner and the prosecution cannot act in a manner that is not objective, that isn’t independent,” she told the committee in her almost four hours of testimony. “I cannot act in a partisan way and I cannot be politically motivated. And all of this screams of that,” she said.

On Jan. 7, JWR received a call from Trudeau telling her she was being shuffled out of her role as minister of justice and attorney general. “I stated I believed the reason was because of the SNC matter. They denied this to be the case,” she said.