The consultant hired to wipe hard drives in the McGuinty premier’s office says he doesn’t know how the computers of just 20 political staff were selected out of dozens.

Peter Faist told the criminal trial of his common-law spouse, former Dalton McGuinty deputy chief of staff Laura Miller, that another premier’s office employee knew which desks to stop at in February 2013.

“I believe Alex had a list on a yellow sticky note,” Faist testified Friday, referring to McGuinty staffer Alexandra Gair.

Asked by Crown attorney Tom Lemon where the list of names came from, Faist said he didn’t know. The revelation constitutes a mystery in the case over the alleged deletion of documents.

Miller watched from across the room as Faist appeared as a Crown witness in her prosecution.

He confirmed that he signed an investigative assistance agreement with Ontario Provincial Police three years ago.

“I did, yes,” he acknowledged, shortly after taking the witness stand.

The agreement means Faist’s statements to the OPP can’t be used against him, but police are free to investigate any other matters involving him as they see fit.

As court adjourned with Faist to return Monday, Justice Timothy Lipson provided the standard caution not to discuss his evidence and suggested he “spend the weekend at another residence” away from Miller.

“You’re in an unusual position.”

Miller and former McGuinty chief of staff David Livingston have pleaded not guilty to breach of trust, mischief in relation to data and misuse of a computer system in the wiping of hard drives before Kathleen Wynne became premier in mid-February 2013.

McGuinty resigned with his minority government under legal pressure to reveal documents on the controversial cancellations of natural gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga before the 2011 election.

Faist, who had an IT consulting business, confirmed Friday that Miller approached him to

Court has heard Livingston asked senior civil servants in the cabinet office to provide a special access password allowing personal information to be cleared before Wynne’s staff moved in.

“Laura asked me if I knew anybody capable of doing this type of work,” Faist told court. “I said that I can do it myself.”

Details of the job were discussed in person and in a series of emails with another senior premier’s office staffer, Dave Gene.

In one email on Jan. 9, 2013, Gene asked Faist: “Hey, were you looking into wiping our computers?”

Gene was director of operations, a powerful position in the premier’s office.

Faist said there was no discussion about a contract to do the work, for which he prepared by ordering White Canyon deletion software online on Jan. 10.

He chose it to “clean the personal data, but preserve the operating system and the applications.”

He warned in an email to Miller and Gene at the time that people should “just make sure you back up all your files to an external USB key.”

“If they had any files they wanted preserved, that would be a risk,” added Faist, who was later paid $11,017 including tax. Each computer took three hours to clear.

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At one point during the process of clearing the hard drives, Faist emailed Miller to say “things aren’t going well . . . may have to wipe them.” She replied “Uh oh.”

Although the work was done in the premier’s office, Faist sent the bill to the Liberal Caucus Service Bureau, which supports Liberal MPPs at Queen’s Park, and called it invoice “OLP-20,” short for Ontario Liberal Party.

Senior bureaucrats and government IT staff have testified it’s against standard procedure ‎to hire outsiders for such work, without going through an official procurement process and security clearance.

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