My Take on Today's Schreiber Testimony

One thing struck me about today's hearing and it was how well prepared certain Tory MPs seemed to be. They were asking "lawyer" questions, the sort one regularly gets at cross-examinations. I'm guessing that the Cons had the party's legal team working overtime prepping them for today's Schreiber appearance.

The questions were pretty good but lacked effective follow-ups and this allowed Schreiber to pretty much hold steady and swat the underlying allegations away. I suspect they hoped to gore Schreiber to weaken his evidence as much as possible before Mulroney testifies. They also attempted to close off Schreiber's evidence but that didn't work either as the sly little elf made it clear he had a lot more to tell the committee.

Again, Schreiber said he didn't bribe Mulroney with Airbus money. The cash payments came from funds Schreiber received from Thyssen and were paid to secure Mulroney's assistance in lobbying for the Bear Head project once Kim Campbell had safely won the next election. Schreiber was adamant that Mulroney misled him and failed to do anything for the money.

Schreiber has already caused Mulroney trouble by claiming Brian got Airbus money via GCI, Frank Moores' lobby firm. He's worked very hard to distance himself from that alleged transaction. The commonly held suspicion was that the Airbus money came from Schreiber, not from Mulroney's pal, Moores.

Hard to say what to expect when Mulroney gets sworn in on Thursday. I hope the Libs and NDP have their own lawyers prepping their questions for that one. This is a fairly complex saga, the sort that can easily get terminally bogged down in confusion unless the questions are focused and the questioners well disciplined. We will see.