Premier Doug Ford’s chief of staff, Dean French, has served a notice of libel and slander on ousted former Progressive Conservative MPP Randy Hillier for a Twitter post accusing him of destroying ballots from the party’s leadership race last year.

In a letter sent Friday, a lawyer for French also challenged Hillier over a second tweet alleging French sent fraudulent emails in the recent leadership contest of Alberta’s United Conservative Party and demanded both be taken down “immediately” along with all associated comments.

“The tweets … were written in an unfair, irresponsible, reckless and malicious manner and have caused damage to Mr. French,” says the three-page letter from lawyer Gavin Tighe of Gardiner Roberts LLP.

“Should you persist in your tortious and unlawful conduct the intended plaintiff will be seeking general and punitive damages, plus interest and costs in accordance with the Courts of Justice Act,” added Tighe.

None of the allegations have been tested in court.

Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston), who now sits as an independent in the legislature, took to Twitter later Friday with an apology for one of the tweets.

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“I linked to a story that alleged an email server named mail.deanfrench.ca had been implicated in a voter fraud scheme in Alberta, and I stated that server was owned by Dean French,” Hillier wrote.

“This attribution was incorrect, and I apologize for the error. While the email domain ma.deanfrench.com was/is owned by Dean French, (I have received email from him at that domain extension), the ownership of the domain deanfrench.ca cannot be determined, as the information was redacted for privacy reasons,” he added.

“I have deleted the erroneous tweet.”

A senior government official described Hiller’s statement as a “half apology.”

“Until Mr. Hillier apologizes and retracts both groundless allegations then nothing’s changed. Mr. French is continuing to pursue a legal remedy,” said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.

Jag Badwal, the immediate past president of the PC party, issued a statement Friday saying French had no role in the leadership election organizing committee that governed the race won by Ford on March 10 of last year.

“The motion to destroy the ballots was made by the executive on March 15, 2018,” Badwal added, noting the ballots were under the “security care” of an outside firm from the voting date until March 23.

“Mr. French had no involvement, power or control whatsoever, directly or indirectly, in the custody or destruction of any ballots either before, during or after the leadership contest which saw Premier Ford lawfully and democratically elected as leader of the Ontario PC Party.”

“It is regrettable that Mr. Hillier has decided to post these very serious but verifiably and completely false statements in regard to Mr. French,” Badwal concluded.

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Hillier was first suspended from the PC caucus February 20 after being accused of saying “yada yada yada” to parents of children with autism who were in the legislature’s public viewing gallery to protest changes in government funding, but insisted his heckle was aimed at a New Democrat MPP who sits near him.

On March 15, he was permanently expelled from caucus and subsequently warned of a “culture of fear and intimidation” in the premier’s office and raised concerns about alleged “illegal and unregistered lobbying” of the Conservatives, which he did not detail.

Government House Leader Todd Smith called Hillier’s accusations “baseless.”

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