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A month to the day that the scandal first broke, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has managed the improbable — both confirming key details of the deposed attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould’s testimony (i.e., she was telling the truth) and revealing his own shallow grasp of what constitutes improper interference with the justice system and its highest officers.

It is the latter that explains the ongoing interference from his office and the Privy Council Office in JWR’s decision not to cut SNC-Lavalin a deal — not, as the PM claimed, some internal spat or loss of trust among colleagues.

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As Trudeau acknowledged Thursday in his first news conference about the SNC-Lavalin imbroglio, even after JWR told him and Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick on Sept. 17 of “her intention not to proceed with” a DPA, or deferred prosecution agreement, for SNC, he himself asked her to reassess the matter and told his staff to follow up.

He did also remind her, Trudeau agreed, that he was the member from Papineau, just as JWR had testified he did, and “stressed the importance of Canadian jobs.”

The global construction and engineering giant SNC-Lavalin is facing fraud and bribery charges in connection with alleged misconduct years ago in Libya, and first lobbied hard for DPAs to be brought to Canada and then, after Trudeau’s government obligingly brought in the necessary legislative changes last year, to ensure that the company was the first to reap the benefits.

Nor, for the record, is this the company’s first dance with corruption allegations.