EDMONTON—A key player in the United Conservative “kamikaze campaign” scandal has told election investigators that now-leader Jason Kenney knew of a plot to interfere with the party’s 2017 leadership race right from the beginning.

The RCMP and the Alberta Election Commissioner are currently probing allegations that Kenney’s team orchestrated Jeff Callaway’s UCP leadership bid in 2017 in order to attack former Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean, Kenney’s biggest rival. The investigations are also delving into allegations that Callaway’s campaign was fuelled by illegal donations.

But documents obtained by the Star — including dozens of emails and a written statement by Cameron Davies, a communications adviser for Callaway’s campaign — confirm that the Kenney campaign controlled major aspects of the Callaway campaign. The documents appear to cast doubt on Kenney’s denial that he was involved in Callaway’s bid. They also offer a behind-the-scenes view of how it happened, with Kenney staffers providing the Callaway team with strategic plans, attack ads, speeches and talking points. All were aimed at discrediting Jean.

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In an interview on Saturday, Davies told the Star that the documents are his, and he has handed them over to the election commissioner. He also said Kenney had first-hand knowledge of the kamikaze campaign, and attended a meeting at Callaway’s house where it was discussed in July 2017.

“There was a bunch of open discussion in regards to Jason Kenney’s perceived strengths and weaknesses with the Wildrose membership base and the importance of running Callaway as a dark horse to highlight some of the perceived flaws with the opposing candidate,” Davies said.

Callaway, and all but one of the senior officials mentioned in the documents, didn’t respond to the Star’s requests for comment. In a statement, UCP executive director Janice Harrington said Kenney’s campaign has “previously and repeatedly confirmed” that his team communicated with the Callaway campaign.

Attack materials provided from the Jason Kenney campaign to the Jeff Callaway team during the United Conservative Party's 2017 leadership race. A communications adviser for Callaway says the Kenney crew pulled the strings on the Callaway bid, effectively making it a kamikaze campaign to tar Kenney's biggest rival, Brian Jean. (Leaked documents )

“As we have previously said, communication between leadership campaigns is perfectly normal in a preferential ballot election and was within the rules of the 2017 UCP Leadership Election.”

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It’s unclear whether the political manoeuvring detailed in the emails is illegal. However, Davies’ statements cast doubt on Kenney and the party’s previous denials that Callaway’s campaign was anything but legitimate.

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Read more:

Jason Kenney denies allegations he was involved in ‘kamikaze campaign’ during leadership race

Failed UCP nomination candidate calls for inquiry, alleging Jason Kenney organized ‘kamikaze’ rival campaign

Former UCP campaign manager fined for ‘obstruction of an investigation’

Meanwhile, Alberta is potentially weeks away from a provincial election — though a date hasn’t been set, the vote must happen sometime in April or May.

Speaking to media Sunday, Deputy Premier Sarah Hoffman said she wouldn’t comment on whether the revelations would delay the election call, but urged Kenney to “come clean.”

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“I think it belongs on House of Cards, it belongs on Netflix. It does not belong in Alberta politics,” Hoffman said, referring to the TV show about ruthless politicians. “Even if it wasn’t illegal, it was unethical.”

In February, Kenney denied being involved in the Callaway campaign: “I was focused on getting as much support as I could for my campaign, and, frankly, in a leadership election, you’re trying to raise every dollar you can for your own campaign, not for other candidates.

“Mr. Callaway and I met before the leadership election. I was seeking his endorsement because he was the outgoing president of the Wildrose Party. He told me he intended to at least launch an exploratory campaign to run for the leadership. I didn’t think that was a great idea.”

In February, Davies was slapped with $15,000 in fines for “obstruction of an investigation” by the election commissioner (the commissioner identified him as a campaign manager, but Davies says he was a communications adviser).

Cameron Davies, a former communications adviser with the 2017 Jeff Callaway UCP leadership campaign, has confirmed that he sent a batch of emails to Alberta's election commissioner which he says show how the Jason Kenney campaign pulled the strings on Callaway, effectively making him a "kamikaze candidate" who aggressively went after Kenney's main opponent, Brian Jean. (Facebook)

The details in Davies’ emails appear to corroborate allegations made in December by Happy Mann, a failed UCP nomination candidate who donated $3,000 to the Callaway campaign. Mann previously told the Star he had attended meetings with Callaway and Kenney where they discussed organizing and funding for Callaway’s “kamikaze” campaign.

Kenney has questioned Mann’s credibility, pointing out that the party had disqualified him from running in the Calgary-Falconridge nomination because supporters of his were accused of assaulting a local radio host. But in his statement to the commissioner, Davies confirmed that Mann was involved in the scheme and that Kenney was at the meeting.

In the summer of 2017, the Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose parties merged to form the UCP. A leadership vote would be held that fall, and polls were showing Jean was more popular than Kenney, his key rival for the top spot.

“The primary basis of the dark horse candidate inception was to tear down those popularity numbers of Brian Jean’s to level the playing field,” said Davies.

During the campaign, Callaway, a former Wildrose president, was publicly critical of Jean — taking aim, in particular, at the Wildrose caucus deficit, an issue that plagued Jean in the leadership race. Callaway then dropped out a month before the vote and endorsed Kenney, who went on to win.

According to a statement Davies gave to the commissioner, the plan started to take shape in July 2017 when former UCP MLA Derek Fildebrandt was approached to be a “dark horse candidate.” Fildebrandt, now the leader of the Freedom Conservative Party, has previously said that he and Kenney had a meeting where the then-leadership hopeful asked Fildebrandt to run what has now been dubbed a “kamikaze campaign” against Jean.

However, “After a few meetings it was deemed that (Fildebrandt) was not a suitable individual for this role. This was a conclusion that was also agreed upon by the Kenney Team,” Davies wrote.

Eventually, Davies met with Callaway, Kenney, Mann, and a number of others at Callaway’s home, where they decided that he would be the one to go after Jean, Davies’ statement said.

“I am not aware of any funding arrangements that may or may not have been made directly between Jeff Callaway and Jason Kenney,” Davies wrote. “If these discussions did occur, I was not privy to them.”

Donating to a campaign with money that isn’t yours is illegal under the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act. The allegations that the Kenney campaign funded the Callaway campaign remain unproven — however, the commissioner did fine one donor $3,500 in late February for donating money to Callaway with money that wasn’t hers.

Davies stated that his role in the alleged scheme was to “co-ordinate the communications with the Kenney Team,” and that former UCP candidate Randy Kerr was the campaign manager for Callaway.

“Being a former Jason Kenney Leadership Team member during the Progressive Conservative Party leadership campaign. It made most sense to have (Kerr) as a primary conduit,” wrote Davies.

Earlier this month, Kerr was removed by the party as the UCP candidate for Calgary-Beddington because he wasn’t “forthright in responding to the party’s inquiries regarding his financial contribution to the Jeff Callaway leadership campaign.”

The Star sent an email, called and texted Kerr for his comments but didn’t receive a response.

At the time, the UCP’s executive director, Janice Harrington, said in a statement that “the party is not making any allegation against Mr. Kerr regarding the legitimacy of his contribution to the Callaway leadership, nor against Mr. Callaway or his campaign.”

Davies’ letter states that the Kenney campaign assisted with videos, graphics, speeches, emails and communications advice. It also says that the Callaway campaign gave debate audience tickets to the Kenney team, effectively stacking the cards in Kenney’s favour in terms of audience engagement in three leadership debates that took place.

Matt Wolf, a top Kenney associate since his days as an MP in Ottawa and current UCP deputy chief of staff, was the contact regularly advising Davies on how to run the Callaway campaign, the emails show.

The Star called, texted and emailed Wolf, but didn’t receive a response. During the leadership campaign, he was Kenney’s director of issues management — a role where he was responsible for campaign strategy, media responses, social media content and preparing for debates.

Wolf, Davies, Kerr and sometimes Callaway exchanged frequent emails about Callaway’s messaging, planning to go after Jean on issues like party unity and the Wildrose caucus deficit, the documents show.

One Aug. 13, 2017 email from Wolf to Davies includes a week-by-week plan of “themes” for Callaway to focus on through August and September 2017: “seeds of doubt,” “consistency” and “trust.”

After the “trust” week, the email reads: “Jeff drops (although depending on when the debates are you may have other ideas?)

“By this time we hope Jean has attacked Jeff, lost his cool in a debate or two, gone off-script to the media so we can release a series of ‘Screamin’ Jean (SoundCloud) files in which he is screaming.”

Attack materials provided from the Jason Kenney campaign to the Jeff Callaway team during the United Conservative Party's 2017 leadership race. A communications adviser for Callaway says the Kenney crew pulled the strings on the Callaway bid, effectively making it a kamikaze campaign to tar Kenney's biggest rival, Brian Jean. (Leaked documents )

The theme for the week after that is “temperament,” the email said.

In one email, Wolf sends a video of Jean talking about the Wildrose deficit to Davies and asks for his thoughts on it. In others, he sends attack ad graphics — one of which Callaway later tweeted out.

In another, Wolf tells Davies to respond to inquiries about Callaway’s status as a leadership candidate since “it will be ‘official’ by end of day tomorrow regardless.”

While Wolf didn’t respond to a request for comment, the Star has obtained a statement he sent to the UCP caucus Sunday morning addressing the leaked emails.

“To be clear, this was not a ‘puppet’ type operation. Mr. Callaway made his own decisions for his own reasons,” wrote Wolf. “And while communicating with the Callaway campaign was hardly my preoccupation during the leadership, I did, at times, push things like research materials to Mr. Callaway’s team.”

Wolf told the caucus members that he recognized the emails might look “unflattering today” but said that this is how politics works and that “it wasn’t personal.”

“On the major question of Callaway Campaign financial issues — which is a legitimate legal matter — I am confident that our campaign did not fund or have any awareness of what their campaign was doing on this front,” Wolf wrote.

Wolf indicated that the NDP, special interests and “a small group of individuals who used to be part of our movement” will hype everything for their own ends.

“That too is politics, as nasty as it is,” Wolf said.

Davies was also in touch with was Blaise Boehmer, Kenney’s director of communications during his leadership bid.

In one email dated Oct. 4, Boehmer gave Davies a written statement to give to media, which included a quote from Callaway endorsing Kenney. The statement provided by Boehmer includes quotes from Callaway and Kenney.

Boehmer told The Star he recalled editing an endorsement for Kenney that Davies had wrote himself.

“While I appreciate that some media find the daily grind of campaign work fascinating, editing statements and providing quotations is pretty standard fare in political communications,” wrote Boehmer.

“The goal of a campaign is to succeed by playing within the rules established by the leadership election committee. We did that, and won decisively. But it looks like the losers of that contest have nothing better to do than wage a petty campaign of rumour and innuendo on the eve of a critical election.”

Several times, Wolf sent Davies the text of what appear to be speeches written for Callaway that criticize Jean.

“I don’t think you need a script to read, but below is the rough outline of what I’d suggest,” Wolf wrote in one email to Callaway, Davies and Kerr.

“The very fact that we have a United Conservative Party today is testament to the fact that Jason understands that the members are in the drivers’ seat,” Wolf’s suggested remarks read. “We’ve seen how backroom deals work — and fail.”

After Callaway withdrew from the race, there was a “thank you” party at Callaway’s home that Kenney attended with 10 other key organizers on his team, Davies alleged.

“Jason was appreciative of the work the Callaway Campaign did, and gave a short thank you to Jeff and the team for their support and efforts,” said Davies in his statement to the election commissioner.

The election commissioner is bound by legislation not to talk publicly about investigations, so official information is scarce.

However, on Friday, the Star learned that the election commissioner has handed over the investigation to the RCMP and a spokesperson confirmed they’re looking into the information provided. And one Callaway donor and former UCP chief financial officer for a Calgary riding, Karen Brown, was hit with a $3,500 fine for giving the same amount to Callaway using funds that weren’t hers.

The election commissioner’s investigation kicked off after an anonymous complaint was filed in November naming 18 individuals who made allegedly suspicious campaign donations to Callaway.

Davies wouldn’t go into detail about the donations that fuelled the Callaway campaign, stating that he was still a witness in the commissioner’s investigation.

“I would be shocked if a very serious campaign to discredit, intimidate, and otherwise attempt to negate what I’ve told you tonight doesn’t begin immediately,” Davies told the Star.

Jean didn’t respond to a request for comment from the Star. Last week, rumours circulated that the former Wildrose leader is planning to take over the leadership of the Freedom Conservative Party, which Fildebrandt founded last year. (The rumours haven’t been confirmed and Jean appeared to deny them.)

“For nearly a year now, loyal UCP members have been coming forward to call out anti-democratic wrongdoings inside the party, and Mr. Kenney has shrugged all of them off as ‘liars’ and ‘sour grapes,’” said Fildebrandt in a statement Sunday.

“This is no longer in the realm of experiencing things differently or differences of opinions, or even ‘sour grapes.’ It is about Mr. Kenney’s willingness to do or say anything to obtain power; to corrupt and abuse the grassroots democratic promise to achieve his own ends; and his comfort with telling deliberate lies to cover up and slander those who have come forward to tell the truth.”

Meanwhile, the UCP are also dealing with separate allegations that Kenney’s team carried out mass voter fraud in 2017. Former UCP MLA Prab Gill, now sitting as an independent after he was ousted over ballot-stuffing allegations, sent a letter making the allegations to the RCMP in February.

It’s unclear if the RCMP are investigating those allegations, but the UCP executive director Janice Harrington has denied Gill’s claims, saying they’re “a public attack campaign” against the party.

With files from Kashmala Fida, Star Edmonton