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Smith wasn’t even able to answer the most rudimentary questions about the investigation, such as, how long is the report (that is, how many pages), how many witnesses were interviewed (both Smith and Singh said, separately, “several”) and how much did the NDP pay Deborah Jelly, the human rights pro with the “fair workplace” background, to do it?

These details, Smith said, had to remain confidential so that others who might wish to come forward will not feel deterred, and all parties have agreed to this process.

That is hugely amusing, given that both Moore and Kirkland already have spoken out publicly with what the prime minister might call their “truths”, and that Moore has threatened to sue Kirkland and three media organizations (the Post, CBC and the Toronto Star) which dared report what Kirkland said about their affair.

Who else and whose confidentiality is there left to protect?

Moore was in her constituency office in Rouyn-Noranda Thursday, and among her statements explaining her reaction to the investigation’s conclusion, she said she was unsurprised by the results but nonetheless relieved that she won’t have to answer any more questions about it.

Indeed, she didn’t answer questions the Post asked her in emails Thursday.

This is an NDP-funded investigation, with terms established by the NDP, which just cleared an NDP MP

As for Kirkland, the 34-year-old soldier and Afghan vet at the centre of the brouhaha, he too was unsurprised by the investigator’s findings.

“This is an NDP-funded investigation, with terms established by the NDP, which just cleared an NDP MP,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Brandon, Man., where he works as a realtor.

Kirkland, for the record, says he initially declined to participate in the investigation on the advice of his lawyer. (Six days after Singh announced the investigation and suspended Moore, Kirkland, like the news agencies involved, received a purported libel notice, only his described his claims as “a tissue of lies”)

But, he told the Post, less than a week later, perhaps as soon as three days after, he called the investigator back “to participate in an interview” but was told his version of events had been “pieced together” from news accounts and no one needed to speak to him.

He told the Post he spoke to Jelly for “about three minutes” and she was “so rude to me I asked would you be speaking to me like that” if he was a woman.

He was told, he said, the investigator had what she needed from press accounts.

“I was a witness (before a legislative committee) and we slept together,” Kirkland told the Post. “You’re allowed to sleep with witnesses? That’s going to make a lot of lawyers happy.”

Jelly did not respond by press time to a late-in-the-day request, by voice message and email, for comment.