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He called the threatened lawsuit “an intimidation tactic” aimed at silencing the Conservatives, who have been demanding a thorough, independent investigation of the affair. It’s the same kind of tactic Trudeau has employed to silence former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, said Scheer.

“This is what Justin Trudeau does when you stand up to him. He threatens you.”

Like Wilson-Raybould, Scheer added: “We will not back down. We will continue to do our jobs, hold him to account and get to the bottom of this.”

Wilson-Raybould maintains she was inappropriately pressured last fall by the Prime Minister’s Office to stop criminal proceedings against SNC-Lavalin on bribery charges related to contracts in Libya. She believes she was moved to Veterans Affairs in a mid-January cabinet shuffle as punishment for refusing to do so. She resigned from cabinet a month later.

While she has called the pressure improper, Wilson-Raybould has said she doesn’t believe anything illegal occurred.

Last week, Trudeau expelled both Wilson-Raybould and fellow former cabinet minister Jane Philpott from the Liberal caucus. Philpott had resigned from cabinet in early March, citing a loss of confidence in the government’s handling of the SNC-Lavalin case.

At issue in the threatened libel suit is a statement Scheer issued on March 29, in which he said documentation provided by Wilson-Raybould to the House of Commons justice committee — including a surreptitiously recorded phone conversation with the clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick — is “concrete evidence that proves Justin Trudeau led a campaign to politically interfere with SNC-Lavalin’s criminal prosecution.”