Sex Payouts, Character Assassinations: Trudeau Struggles to Contain Corruption Scandal
As sordid details of the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal emerge, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are under fire for what many analysts allege were strategic leaks intended to smear Jody Wilson-Raybould.
The former attorney general has accused Canada’s prime minister and top staffers of attempting to interfere in the criminal prosecution of Montreal-based global engineering firm SNC-Lavalin on bribery and corruption charges relating to its government contracts in Libya from 2001 to 2011.
Since the scandal broke in February, Trudeau and the Liberals have taken a hit in the polls, dropping four points behind the Conservatives, CBC News reported in March. And the prime minister’s personal popularity has tanked more than his party’s, dropping six to eight points, with some pundits predicting the growing SNC-Lavalin scandal may be the end of Trudeau’s political career.
In a more unsavory aspect of the affair, Montreal’s La Presse revealed last month that SNC-Lavalin paid $30,000 to Saadi Gadhafi, the son of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, to cover his hiring of prostitutes during his visit to Canada in 2008, according to the National Post. . .
The information was gathered during an investigation of Stéphane Roy, former vice-president of SNC-Lavalin, on fraud and bribery charges, and its publication was allowed after the charges were dropped in mid-February because of court delays, the National Post reported. (Read more from “Sex Payouts, Character Assassinations: Trudeau Struggles to Contain Corruption Scandal” HERE)
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