TwoMinutesInTheBoxVille
In case you missed it there was another RailGate hearing yesterday.
How do we know?
Because Bill Tieleman posted up the details on his blog.
Turns out that the defense (surprise!) is alleging political interference by British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell in decisions that have been made (and may still be being made) about what 'evidence' will be held back/suppressed for various and sundry types of privilege that, apparently, have nothing to do with the affairs of Mr. Campbell's cabinet.
We've written about this stuff before.
A lot.
Actually, a heckuva lot.
In fact, probably more than any sane person who is not billing lawyer's hours ever should.
Anyway.
Given all the water that has already passed under the privilege bridge, including the sinking of a previously proven protocol (which is another glorious P3 for anybody that missed it), it is not surprising that the defense now wants to know what Mr. Campbell said to whom, when.
Specifically, the lawyers for co-accused David Basi and Robert Virk, Michael Bolton and Kevin McCullough would like any recordings that were made of the interview Mr. Campbell gave to VProvince columnist Michael Smyth earlier this year when he, 'allegedly' said things like the following:
"It is interesting to know what's taking place on occasion," Campbell told me.
"I asked [Seckel] within the last couple of weeks, 'What's going on?' He said, 'The judge has got all the documents. The judge is making the choices. That's what's happening.' I said, 'Fine.'"
Hmmmmm......
Interesting that, don't you think.
Because, despite all claims that he is not 'interfering' and that he is not 'involved' and that he is not 'influencing' how evidence is being suppressed (legally, of course), Mr. Campbell is, indeed, 'interested', and thus he has apparently spoken to his man 'Seckel' about the details of all that privileged information .
And some of that material is, apparently, critical to the case because it gets to matter of, as the presiding judge Elizabeth Bennett has described it, 'innocence at stake'.
So forget all this 300,000 pages of evidence stuff, because if the critical pages are missing all that wasted wood fiber and/or pixel power means pretty much less than nothing at all.
And just who is this 'Seckel'?
Well that would be Mr. Campbell's most excellent Deputy Attorney General Mr. Allan Seckel, the man in charge of knowing 'what's going on', because he is also the guy that was in charge of the privilege suppression (or not) protocols themselves.
But don't worry, because as Mr. Seckel also spoke to the columnist Mr. Smyth way back when:
"We were going into a meeting and he said something about, 'How's it going?' And I said something to the effect of, 'Don't believe everything you read in the papers.' Then he said, 'Well, when this is all over, you can tell me about that.'
Which is certainly good to know.
But here's something just as, if not more, 'interesting'......
Mr. Seckel and his interview with Mr. Smyth was a topic of discussion in the RailGate Courtroom yesterday.
How do we know that?
Well, again, we are lucky that Mr. Tieleman was there to tell us all about it when no other media members were* (perhaps they were too busy getting ready to write all those storys about the third member of 'star' prosecution witness Erik Bornmann's RailGate Six to resign yesterday?).
Here are the details from Mistah T's report:
Government lawyer George Copley later told (Judge) Bennett that there is no government audio tape of the interview with Seckel.
"The deputy did reply to (Virk defense lawyer) Mr. McCullough's letter and said he did not record the interview with Mr. Smyth but the passages quoted by Mr. Smyth were correct," Copley said.
Which is all fine and dandy as far as it goes.
Except for this.
Michael Smyth's interview with Mr. Seckel was NOT the same interview as the one that resulted in Mr. Campbell's comments to Smyth regarding his 'interest' in privilege such that he spoke to his man Seckel.
OK?
____
*OK, OK, OK! It turns out that Mark Hume, who has done some very good work in the past, did have a short piece in today's Globe but it was cryptic in the extreme. Further, it contained no mention of the actual RailGate Tape 'request' and the only quotes were made by lawyers 'outside' the courtroom which kind of makes one go, hmmmmmmmmm...... (re: attendance). And speaking of hmmmmmmm.......(re: attendance), especially given our good friend Mary's recent very illuminating exchange with VSun managing editor Kirk Lapointe, why no story today from Neal Hall (enquiring Anon-O-Mice want to know)?
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