By Canadian Press

Vice-Admiral Mark Norman’s lawyers push for emails from Trudeau, senior staff

Feb 22, 2019 | 11:39 AM

OTTAWA — Vice-Admiral Mark Norman’s legal team is pushing for access to emails and other communications from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and senior members of his staff as the clock ticks down to the next phase of the high-profile case.

Those includes records held by Trudeau’s former principal secretary Gerald Butts and chief of staff Katie Telford as well as Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s chief of staff Zita Astravas and the country’s top public servant, Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick.

Norman’s lawyer, Marie Henein, has been fighting federal lawyers and the Crown for the past two months for thousands of internal documents held by government officials and departments that she says are necessary to prove her client’s innocence.

The court heard during a pre-trial hearing Friday that some progress has been made in collecting and analyzing many of the requested records, but Henein said she was prioritizing internal communications from Trudeau and other senior government members that have been subpoenaed.

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Those records are expected to form part of Henein’s argument next month, during what’s called an abuse-of-process hearing, that there was no legitimate reason for Norman to be charged in the first place.

Norman was suspended as the military’s second-in-command in January 2017 and charged last March with one count of breach of trust for allegedly leaking government secrets to undermine cabinet’s decision-making process on a major shipbuilding deal.

The Canadian Press