TORONTO — The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is calling for a police investigation into bombshell allegations that Justin Trudeau’s office interfered in the criminal case against SNC-Lavalin.

“Messing with the administration of justice is not just bad politics. It may be a crime,” CCLA executive director Michael Bryant said in a statement Thursday.

Earlier in the day, the Globe and Mail reported that the Prime Minister’s Office urged then attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to intervene in a corruption case against the Quebec engineering and construction services company. The criminal case centres on allegations the company paid millions in bribes to secure government contracts in Libya.

The Globe reports the prime minister’s office wanted SNC-Lavalin to avoid going to trial and instead get a deal that would allow the company to pay a fine but admit no criminal wrongdoing. The deal is known as a “deferred prosecution agreement,” or a “remediation agreement, and was only made legal in Canada last year.

[READ MORE: Trudeau denies PMO interfered in SNC-Lavalin case; Scheer slams careful denial]

The Globe story claims that Wilson-Raybould resisted pressure to intervene with the Public Prosecution Service’s decision to proceed with a trial. A few months after that decision was made, she was moved from the justice and attorney general’s office to become the new minister of veterans affairs.

Trudeau denied the report at a Thursday morning press conference in Vaughan.

“The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false,” he said. “Neither the current nor the previous attorney general was ever directed by me or by anyone in my office to take a decision in this matter.”

However, the Globe didn’t report that a direct request was made only that Wilson-Raybould faced “heavy pressure.”

Asked about that distinction, Trudeau repeated his original comment, and didn’t rule out that his office pressured the attorney general. Wilson-Raybould has not commented on the allegations.

In a follow-up interview with iPolitics, Bryant, a former Liberal attorney general for Ontario, said the police either need to investigate the allegations or explain why they aren’t being investigated.

“I’d be surprised if a police investigation was not commenced,” he said. “A lot of police officers have laid a lot of obstruction of justice charges on a lot of ordinary Canadians, with a lot less evidence than this.

“These allegations as they stand in the report right now — while denied by the prime minister — fall within the four corners of obstruction of justice,” Bryant said.

Despite multiple requests for comment, the RCMP has not yet told iPolitics whether it is reviewing the allegations.

Trudeau’s answers on interference allegations making matters worse: professor

The prime minister’s carefully worded denial further damages the government’s position, according to University of Calgary law professor Michael Nesbitt.

“This response actually makes this whole thing worse,” Nesbitt tweeted. “The concern has always been ‘influence’ not ‘direct.’ The difference is between ‘corrupt’ and ‘stupid and corrupt,’ and the former is harder to detect, weed out & correct.”

[READ MORE: SNC-Lavalin enters compliance agreement over problematic party donations]

University of Ottawa law professor Jennifer Quaid told iPolitics she was “astounded” by the allegations.

“If it was true, it just seemed like a very naked attempt to secure a particular outcome in a particular criminal case,” she said. “It is important that those with power not be able to circumvent or bend the rules when it suits them.”

Without restraint from those in power, she said the trust that’s required for the justice system to work wouldn’t be there.

Quaid said the allegations would be concerning no matter who was at the centre of the case, but it’s all the more significant because it involves a major Canadian company in a politically significant province.

“It’s not just some random political interference, it’s political interference on behalf of an already powerful entity and one can wonder what the larger agenda is there,” Quaid said.

These concerns are precisely why Bryant said the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is speaking out.

“The reason why CCLA cares about this is you can’t have two different justice systems, one for everybody else and one for the powerful,” he said.

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