Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Mulroney's M.O.

Brian Mulroney has called for a "full-fledged public commission of inquiry which would cover the period from 1988 to today".

Mulroney has shown himself to be a brilliant tactician in winning legal battles. His M.O., shown again here, is to get out in front of the issue and protest his innocence loudly. But I remember all the years of bluster and lying from this man, and I don't believe him. If he sincerely wanted to get out in front of this issue, he'd tell us what his deal with Schreiber was that netted him $300,000 cash; he'd fess up to what other money he has taken from Schreiber over the decades of their friendship; and he'd tell us what he knows about Schreiber's other payees.

In his statement, Mulroney protests his innocence vis-a-vis the letter sent by the RCMP to Swiss authorities. I don't know how the RCMP worded that letter, but based on the previous out of court settlement he got from contesting it, it seems clear that the RCMP wrote it badly.

Another interesting point in Mulroney's letter is reference to the extradition order of Karlheinz Schreiber as "an extradition order confirmed twice by the Supreme Court of Canada." It sounds like Mulroney wants Schreiber to be extradited to Germany so that he will stop talking in Canada. As I have argued before, we should delay that extradition, and perhaps even offer immunity to Schreiber, in order to get more information out of him.

Who knows - maybe Mulroney is innocent. But this time, I'd like the inquiry to be complete and to avoid manipulation from Team Mulroney.

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2 comments:

Dennis (Second Thots) said...

So, a man in prison wants to be immune from extradition. He engages in tactics directly aimed at attaining that goal. And we should simply turn around and give him what he wants?

This is what you're advocating for?

Yappa said...

Hi Dennis,

Yup, that's usually how it works when the prosecution flips someone. Criminals don't usually give it up for nothing. There obviously has to be a great deal of fact-checking; and the deal usually is that if he lies or hides things, the deal is off. It happens all the time, a recent being example being Conrad Black's business partner.