Not just a Crime Minister, but a dumb Crime Minister

If you’re going to set someone up to take the fall for your crime, you should choose a source not obviously connected to you to present the fabrication. (emphasis mine)

Mr. Sona has told former co-workers he learned from the Sun News Network that he was being fingered by Conservative sources in connection with the phony calls. Friends say the ex-aide was sitting in his office in late February when Sun News broke a story that Tories had tied him to “a robo-calling scandal.”   The Sun News Network was the first media outlet to link Mr. Sona to the controversy. 

Anonymous Conservatives have repeatedly fingered Michael Sona, singling out him alone among a group of workers on the campaign of Guelph candidate Matty Burke, but a source says Sona had no reason to believe Elections Canada was interested in him until he was named by unidentified senior Tories in a report on Sun News Network the day the story broke.

 ...Sona wasn’t even a person of interest to Elections Canada until he was cited in media reports, according to the source. Al Mathews, the former RCMP inspector leading the probe, did not speak to Sona until after the 23-year-old left Adams’ office.

...As recently as Monday night, Conservative sources were pushing Sona in connection to the Guelph robocalls. A CTV News report cited unnamed Conservatives saying Sona had owned up to the calls amid reports that the investigation had traced an Internet Protocol address used by “Poutine” to a home in Guelph, Ontario.

You should make your scapegoat someone who has the abilities needed to commit your crime.

A source close the investigation said Tuesday that it seems unlikely that a 23-year-old, acting alone, would have been able to pull off the fairly complicated “Pierre Poutine” caper, recording a bilingual, legitimate-sounding message purportedly from Elections Canada, setting up a screen of two false identities using a prepaid cellphone and credit card, and expertly covering his electronic tracks.

And you should make sure that the poor schmuck you are setting up had opportunity to commit your vile crime -

The Conservatives keep track of supporters and other voters through a massive database called the constituency information management system (CIMS), which was created and expanded under Stephen Harper’s leadership of the party. Access to CIMS is controlled through personal accounts with passwords. One person familiar with the local Guelph campaign estimated that perhaps 10 to 15 people working there had personal CIMS accounts. “Everything is logged,” a Conservative source said. 

Someone familiar with the investigation said that CIMS records indicate Michael Sona, then-communications director to candidate Marty Burke, never used his CIMS account to draw down lists of voters during the campaign. 

Scum Sun Media and CTV News should be forced to reveal the names of the “unidentified senior Tories” who pointed their fingers at Sona.  

Toews cries and threatens a guy who legally tweeted truths about Mr. Family Values and is forcing him to go before a committee.  “Senior Tories” make up lies about a guy that put his life in a downward spiral, Sun Media pushes the lies, and they get paid.

Could it be brain damage? Memory loss? No, just another CONjob.

Dean Del Mastro:    Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party of Canada always provides all documents requested by Elections Canada. In fact, we provide Elections Canada with full reports on all our campaigns. The Conservative Party of Canada ran a clean and ethical campaign. That is what the evidence demonstrates.   (Hansard, February 29, 2012)

On April 15, 2008, the RCMP executed a search warrant at Conservative Party Headquarters on behalf of the Elections Commissioner in order to seize documents related to the investigation of the In and Out scam. The warrant alleges that not only did the party exceed the maximum amount allowed for election expenses but the Conservative Fund may also have filed financial returns "that it knew or ought reasonably to have known contained a materially false or misleading statements."

An unidentified staffer opens the door for a plainclothes RCMP officer during a raid on Conservative Party headquarters in Ottawa on April 15, 2008.

This is very telling

Most of us are by now aware of harper’s big denial -

Harper issued his strongest denial yet that his party had nothing to do with the robocalls. "The Conservative Party can say absolutely, definitively, it has no role in any of this," Harper said Wednesday in response to a question from NDP Leader Nycole Turmel. "The honourable leader of the NDP should provide her party's information to Elections Canada," Harper said. "Otherwise, I think we just conclude this is simply a smear campaign without any basis at all."

But what’s this?

A spokesman for Harper says he was referring to the Conservatives' national campaign, as opposed to individual local campaigns.

In a party where no high level spokesperson issues statements without having them vetted by steve, why offer this clarification up?

With more and more allegations coming from individual ridings and Elections Canada indicating it has enough credible evidence to warrant an investigation, it may be that harper wants to protect himself from illegal election activity that he knows went on.  By clarifying that the federal campaign is clean, but not defending the ridings, he sets himself above the scandal…or so he thinks.  I don’t think that’ll fly, though.  While from a legal perspective he may protect himself with this tactic, as leader of his party, he won’t be able to shake responsibility in the House and with voters.  Either he knew about the activities and allowed them or even encouraged them, or he has practically no control over how his MPs and campaign people act.  Either way, he is not fit to lead a party, let alone a country.

More interesting news today – RMG is looking like it may have been used in a shady fashion as well, and there are not allegations of more in-and-out activities, this time in QC.  Even CPC candidates are talking:

Les dépenses électorales de certains candidats conservateurs du Québec à la dernière élection générale soulèvent des questions. Au moins une direction de campagne locale admet s'être fait demander par le bureau national du Parti conservateur de payer une firme d'appels sans en retirer quoi que ce soit en retour. Une autre s'interroge sur la valeur réelle de la dépense. 

Briefly – several CPC candidates were billed for using RMG call services, but their riding campaign never used the services.  The money simply went through them to provide RGM services to the federal campaing.  That’ll make it a fair bit harder for harper to isolate himself from riding activities.

If your French is good enough, read the whole article.  Pretty damaging stuff.  I’m sure the Anglo papers will pick up on this soon.