WATCH: Federal Court livestreams Rebel News lawsuit against David Lametti
Tune in live as Rebel News tries to prevent former justice minister David Lametti from potentially deleting records relating to the Liberals' invocation of the Emergencies Act.
Click here or go to www.StopTheCoverUp.com to sign up for the court’s Zoom link to watch the trial.
Great news. The Federal Court of Canada has decided that our lawsuit against Trudeau’s disgraced former justice minister, David Lametti, is important enough to the public interest that the entire hearing will be livestreamed through the court’s Zoom account.
Today is a critical day — we are asking a judge to issue an immediate injunction to stop Lametti from destroying his records as justice minister, something we caught him doing when he started deleting his Twitter account.
It is against the law for politicians to destroy public archives, which include his ministerial communications. He’s obviously hiding his tracks.
It starts at 11 a.m. MT, 1 p.m. ET, so there’s no time to waste!
There are three potential outcomes:
- The court could order Lametti to preserve his Twitter account. That’s the best outcome.
- The court could accept a “promise” from Lametti to transfer his filed to civil servants for proper handling. That’s not great, because those bureaucrats work for Trudeau.
- Or the court could decide to do nothing, and just let Lametti get away with it again.
We’ll see. Please watch along with me at 1 p.m. ET this afternoon! I’ll be live tweeting the proceedings on my Twitter account, and we’ll have updates at www.StopTheCoverUp.com.
Our lawyer is the great Chad Williamson, who has just smoked the Liberals for us again and again — including beating Steven Guilbeault.
If you like Chad’s work in court today, please help me pay his bill. We’re going to be up against at least a half dozen Trudeau lawyers paid for with your tax dollars. Help David beat Goliath — please click here to help.
Follow along with updates below:
This is relevant because Lametti's tweets, as justice minister, are protected records under the law. He had no legal right to do so.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
And he did so days after losing the Federal Court ruling that declared the invocation of he Emergencies Act illegal. He's hiding his tracks.
The Zoom call has been turned on! I see the court registrar and two of Lametti's lawyers.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Unbelievable -- our lawsuit against David Lametti is being heard by the most senior judge in the Federal Court system, the chief justice himself: https://t.co/5fXapeDnjj
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Nicol says he needs about half an hour, and so does Lametti's lawyer. So we'll probably be here for 90 minutes total. Judge calls on our guy, Scott Nicol, to start. He says our other lawyer Chad Williamson may add remarks, too.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott says by clicking "delete", Lametti started a 30-day countdown to permanent deletion of his Twitter account. It was in a "destruction pipeline".
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott says all we need is for the court to order Lametti to "leave the data alone". Not to do anything, but rather to not do anything.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
"All we've been asking for is relief related to the X account alone."
Scott: even though the account is reactivated, we have no idea if any other changes or deletions are being made (because there is nothing stopping it.)
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: Lametti's lawyers say they have the right to do with the Twitter account as they wish.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: we don't need to figure out how to transfer the Twitter account today. We just need a court order to preserve everything until we figure it out.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: it wouldn't be sensible to let a government person to simply "resign" and then be exculpated from their responsibilities to protect their government data the next day. That's what Lametti is trying to do here.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: We put our case together in just two days. Lametti has had more than two weeks to response. But he hasn't submitted any evidence at all, he hasn't given an undertaking. He hasn't answered any questions.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: the point today is not to punish Lametti or even make a determination about what happened. The point is simply to preserve the data, which hasn't happened yet.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott refers to the late-filed affidavit that I mentioned earlier. It shows details about Lametti's social media use. Scott is now sharing his screen on Zoom for people to see it.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
That's Lametti's Instagram post, too. The affidavit contains the Instagram version, which shows that the post was actually edited. Scott's point is that the edit was made after we sued Lametti. So he's not preserving the records.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
The judge says it's obvious that this is a governmental account. Scott says we have to prove it because the government has, in the past, argued that they were personal account.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott continues to go through government-type social media posts on his Twitter account. I think the judge finds this unnecessary, but the Trudeau government argued for two years (in Rebel News v. Guilbeault) that these were personal accounts beyond the reach of the law.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Chad reminds the judge that in two previous lawsuits -- Rebel News v. Steven Guilbeault and Rebel News v. Marci Ien, Karina Gould and Ya'ara Saks -- the government claimed that those government tweets were just personal accounts.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Chad: the focus of the applicants is just preservation of all data relating to X (Twitter).
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
At two pervious hearings we made it clear we only want Twitter preserved.
Chad: all we want is an order telling Lametti and the government not to touch the account until we get a full hearing of the issues here.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
The Instagram evidence shows that Lametti is "altering records".
Chad: Lametti has failed to put any evidence before the court to challenge our allegations.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
We're just looking for a protective injunction for now, until we can have a full hearing on the merits.
Judge: so you're not seeking any mandatory relief? (As in, to compel the government to actually do anything.)
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: we just needed him to reactive the case, but he's done that now.
Scott: this is a serious matter. Destroying government documents is very important. This is a guy who talked about bringing tanks to the trucker convoy. It would be irreparable harm if this data is deleted.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: asking Lametti just to leave the records alone is a trifling ask. There should be no inconvenience here.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: Lametti and the government now argue that the Twitter account and Lametti are beyond the reach of government.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: If Lametti really is a non-government actor, then the government is arguing that government data is in the hands of a private citizen!
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: a private citizen can't take a government job, abscond with government data, and then walk away with that data and say he's a private person again.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott take the judge to the page in the government filing that actually claims there's "no evidence" that Lametti was acting as a government actor through his Twitter account.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Judge asks our lawyer Scott to take him through various statutes that are relevant.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Judge asks Chad to repeat himself. Chad says the Federal Court has inherent jurisdiction to rule on cases where Charter complaints have been made. So he's saying there's a catch-all for Charter issues.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: we're not asking for any real remedy. Just don't destroy records. We don't know why there's such an effort to resist this -- that's worrying to us.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: the proposed undertaking also gives power to the Library and Archives staff -- they're not a party to this action (we don't know what they would do).
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
The judge asks Scott to clarify and restate. Scott says we need a simpler, larger preservation order -- Lametti, either on purpose or inadvertently could still alter data under the terms of his undertaking.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
I'm one of 500 people watching the live hearing of our lawsuit, Rebel News v. David Lametti.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Get the Zoom link at https://t.co/RCqlSFZcmq.
Scott: this isn't a trap. If something were to happen to the data. Lametti is only being ordered not to positively do anything.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Chad refers to court orders in other fields (Covid, MAID) where courts can order anyone who becomes aware of the order not to do certain things. As in, it catches a wide net of people. Something an undertaking doesn't to.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: in the fact of a court order directing preservation of records, other people would be foolish to step in to interfere. Very different from a mere undertaking.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott reads another government submission saying that a cabinet minister's use of Twitter is not covered by Charter matters.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott says, it absolutely does, whether an announcement is made on Twitter or on paper.
Scott reads out the kooky argument made by the government. The government claims that Twitter is not controlled by government, so Twitter is not subject to the Charter.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
[I honestly can't believe the government made that absurd argument.]
Scott: we're asking for Lametti not to delete Direct Messages (DMs) either.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott shows that the Attorney General argues claims the WayBack machine is "extensive archiving".
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
I love that Scott uses the phrase "the destruction pipeline". You could make a drinking game out of that!
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
I have seen a lot of Justice Department lawyers. I think we're suing Trudeau in seven lawsuits. Many of them are excellent and they have a lot of time to do a good job.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
I really think this case was given to a junior lawyer, or an articling student. I've never seen them so weak.
Judge asks how we're doing for time -- Scott says he needs five minutes to wrap up.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: the government says we don't need a court order, because destroying it is already illegal.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
[But... we're here precisely because Lametti did so.]
Scott: Lametti and the government hasn't outlined steps they'd take to stop this from happening again.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: government says, "they're not government records, but trust us to take care of them".
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: we're surprised they're fighting this so fiercely, and it's a concerning element.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott concludes. The judge points out that we've been going to nearly two hours. Judge says we'll take a break and start with Lametti and the government.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Court breaks for ten minutes.
The court is live again.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
It's Rebel News v. David Lametti. We're suing Trudeau's disgraced former justice minister for illegally deleting his Twitter account.
Click https://t.co/RCqlSFZcmq to get the Zoom link to watch the trial. I'll tweet, too.
Grossman says there are two kinds of records: government records and ministerial records.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman: there is nothing left that justifies fear of deletion of the records. Lametti is voluntarily offering an undertaking to adhere to the law, and to add obligations to himself.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him: the Federal Court doesn't have statutory jurisdiction over Lametti. He's saying it's in the wrong court.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him: Lametti is a private citizen. This court can't issue an injunction against a private citizen.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him: this is not about Lametti avoiding responsibility. "There's nothing we should be here for today that merit's the court's intervention."
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him: Rebel News is burdening Lametti by requiring him to "maintain" the status quo.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Judge: isn't that just asking for a status quo?
Grossman he/him: Yes and no.
Judge: the concern was with the deactivation and the automatic destruction after 30 days. But if it's not maintained, we'd be back to square one, wouldn't we?
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him: no, because of the undertaking.
Grossman he/him: the deactivation of the account doesn't necessarily imply the deletion of data.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Holy cow that's a crazy thing to argue.
Judge: so then pls address their point about how that legislation obviously wasn't enough to prevent Lametti from doing what he did.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Chad has an objection. The judge says they didn't interrupt him.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Chad points out that Twitter's rules show that DMs do in fact get deactivated.
Judge: let Lametti's team argue, and then address everything at the end.
Judge: it's possible Library and Archives might make some calls about what it can/can't delete.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him: LAC is a trusted, statute-driven third party.
Grossman he/him: it's a "bonus" for Lametti to give the records to the Library and Archive.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Judge: how is that a bonus?
Grossman he/him: Rebel News wants to include everything from the Twitter account in the archives. That's not justified.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Sorry, Grossman he/him had me hypnotized for a minute there.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him again claims that deactivating an account doesn't delete data. (That's the thing that Chad objected to, before.)
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him: the scope of the proposed Lametti undertaking was not crafted to avoid obligations. The wording comes from the Rebel News lawsuit itself.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him: we propose to transfer the "archive" of the Twitter account to the Library and Archives.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him: the undertaking proposed by Lametti should be enough for the court.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Kerry Boyd is up now -- he's the lawyer for the government of Canada. (Grossman he/him was the lawyer for Lametti personally.)
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Judge to Kerry Boyd: please address Scott's point about the risk of a person moving from being a public person to being a private person, and destroying evidence by saying, "the law no longer covers me".
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Boyd: Ezra claimed the WayBack machine was sparsely populated (and thus not sufficient) but relied on screenshots from the WayBack machine nonetheless.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
(Seems like a small and irrelevant quibble upon which nothing turns?)
The judge basically said: stop talking about the WayBack machine as a suitable alternative to actually preserving Lametti's account. No-one's buying it.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Boyd: the Government of Canada's position on jurisdiction is that the Federal Court doesn't have jurisdiction to deal with this matter.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Judge: so you're saying it's not the low-bar injunction test?
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Boyd: it's still incumbent on Rebel to show it's a serious issue to be tried. That's a high threshold of proof.
Judge consults his notes. If he has no questions, it will then go back to our Rebel lawyers for a quick rebuttal (probably five minutes).
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Boyd and judge look at a CBC story that shows the government runs Lametti's Twitter account. Boyd claims they're talking about another account.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Judge gives Scott and Chad a ten-minute break to confer and come up with any brief replies. Court breaks -- back in ten.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
And if I had go guess how it will go -- which is very foolish and dangerous to do! -- I would say that the judge is with us. He was engaged; he asked clarifying questions of us; he asked challenging questions of the Lametti side.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
The two biggest surprises to me today have been:
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
* that the chief justice himself is hearing this; and
* that he gave it three hours, not one hour.
He is taking this extremely seriously. Which is correct, given that a former Justice Minister is a defendant.
Scott Nicol is back.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
1. Acts of Parliament can't override Charter rights. We have a Charter right here. (Judge asks why that's relevant right now.)
Judge: thanks for showing me that.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: Twitter archives don't save metadata.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: lots of questions about what should or shouldn't be preserved now -- now is the moment to preserve things.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Chad: Lametti hasn't shown what the Twitter archive itself saves.
Judge: isn't everything preserved if the Twitter account is kept alive?
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: but Lametti's lawyer said there's no need to keep the account once it's been archived.
Grossman he/him: I said what I said.
Judge to Grossman he/him: in light of what we've just heard of copies vs. originals, I will give you 24 hours to get back to us with any revised undertaking.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: we just want to maintain the status quo.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Judge: are you fine with it if Lametti signs a new undertaking to maintain the account?
Chad: our issue with an undertaking is that it doesn't extend to anyone acting on Lametti's behalf
Chad: we've heard that Lametti isn't bound by government obligations anymore.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
A court order is simple.
Judge: Scott suggested he was open to a negotiated undertaking; Chad said he wanted the court order. Which is it?
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Scott: we think it should be an order. But we're open to things.
Judge: can Mr. Grossman he/him clarify if you were going to put the Twitter account in the destruction pipeline?
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Grossman he/him: no intention by Lametti to do that.
Judge: interim interim relief was only just mentioned in the last five minutes, so I won't do it. I'll give my ruling as fast as I can.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Judge: I'm mindful of the need to get this out as quickly as I can.
Thank you everyone.
"You've raised an awful lot of issues".
What a battle. Four hours. If you want to help me cover the legal bills for this big battle, you can do that right there at https://t.co/RCqlSFZcmq.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 13, 2024
Thanks for your support!
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