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As he had the previous day, Justin Trudeau said that “if she felt that she had received pressure” it was “her responsibility to come to talk to me. She did not do that.” Moreover, “she continued to serve in this government” as veterans affairs minister after she was dumped from justice in last month’s cabinet shuffle.

This implied without quite saying so that Wilson-Raybould — if it was indeed she who made the allegation — had made the whole thing up. Or that she, rather than his advisers, was somehow derelict in her duty. Or perhaps the former Crown prosecutor is merely mistaken, confusing what the prime minister’s people have called “vigorous debate” with improper interference.

Would he waive solicitor-client privilege, then, to allow her to give her side of things? Well, he allowed, he was looking into it, but he’d already had certain “unintended consequences” flagged to him, what with there being a couple of court cases that might be affected. So: no, in other words.

It has been observed that Wilson-Raybould is the first minister ever to resign from cabinet without giving a reason. She is also likely the first to lawyer up on her way out the door, having hired a former Supreme Court judge, Thomas Cromwell, to advise her on what she can and cannot say. It would seem she anticipates a fight. It would seem she is right.

The prime minister and his staff, it is now clear, are going to throw everything they have at her, smearing her credibility even as they invoke solicitor-client privilege to stop her from answering. They are going to try to keep as tight a lid on this thing as they can, and hope either the public loses interest or the opposition loses heart, for fear of getting offside with opinion in Quebec.