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Freedom Convoy judge allows some redacted internal police documents to be admitted as evidence

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Justice Heather Perkins-McVey stated that in her view there is no reason not to disclose the redactions

On Day 26 of the Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber’s trial last Friday, Judge Heather Perkins-McVey ruled that certain sections of redacted internal police documents, which the defense has been asking to see, will be allowed to be viewed and then admitted as evidence to the court.

Perkins-McVey noted that while some information is protected by solicitor-client privilege, other parts are based on police officer statements and opinions, and thus will not be allowed as evidence.

“Regarding a duplication in the emails, Perkins-McVey states in her view there is no reason not to disclose these redactions,” noted the Democracy Fund, which is crowdfunding Lich’s legal costs on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday.

Lich and Barber’s lawyers had been waiting for a decision from Perkins-McVey regarding being able to view some internal police documents in full that were given to them but in a redacted form.

Last Wednesday, Perkins-McVey said that she would issue a decision regarding the “solicitor-client email disclosure issue on Friday, and it “will revolve around whether ‘some’ or ‘all’ of the email chain will be unredacted.”

Crown prosecutors did not want the information to be unredacted and tried to argue this case to the court.

The documents in question include a police email chain along with essential information from Ottawa Police Services (OPS) officers who had their cell phone data wiped after a so-called software update. The information on the cell phones was regarding important communications between the officers and protest organizers.

The court recently learned that a second police witness, Nicole Bach of the OPS Police Liaison Team (PLT), testified her police-provided phone was “wiped” of all information when asked by the judge if she had copies of vital information of conversations between her and protesters.

On Day 24 of the Freedom Convoy leaders’ trial, Perkins-McVey ordered the Crown to provide a unredacted document to the defense lawyers concerning internal police emails regarding a police officer phone upgrade that “wiped” the data of some devices.

Lich and Barber’s defense had thus far only received completely blacked-out documents concerning the phone wipes of the OPS officers.

Lich and Barber are facing multiple charges from the 2022 protests, including mischief, counseling mischief, counseling intimidation and obstructing police for taking part in and organizing the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy. As reported by LifeSiteNews at the time, despite the non-violent nature of the protest and the charges, Lich was jailed for weeks before she was granted bail.

The Crown is trying to prove that Lich and Barber had somehow influenced the protesters’ actions through their words.

In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government enacted the Emergencies Act on February 14, the same day as “moving day.”

During the clear-out of protesters after the EA was put in place, one protester, an elderly lady, was trampled by a police horse and one conservative female reporter was beaten by police and shot with a tear gas canister.

Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23.

Lich and Barber’s trial has thus far taken more time than originally planned due to the slow pace of the Crown calling its witnesses. LifeSiteNews has been covering the trial extensively.

The trial is set to resume on November 8. However, dates beyond that have yet to be determined.

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Maxime Bernier slams Freedom Convoy leaders’ guilty verdict, calls Canada’s justice system ‘corrupt’

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The leader of the People’s Party of Canada says Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were victims of a ‘political witch hunt.’

The leader of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) ripped Thursday’s federal court ruling that found Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber guilty of mischief, saying the court siding with the government amounted to a “political witch hunt.”

“It is disheartening to learn that two of the heroes of the Freedom Convoy, @LichTamara and @ChrisBarber1975, have been found guilty of mischief in the longest and one of the costliest trials in Canadian history,” Maxime Bernier wrote Thursday on X.

“This clearly was a political witch hunt.”

Bernier added that in his view the reality is that Canada’s justice system is “corrupt.”

“Trudeau and his ministers who illegally invoked the Emergencies Act and violated basic rights will go unpunished,” he noted.

“Our justice system is corrupt to the bones.”

On Thursday, Justice Heather Perkins-McVey, the federal judge overseeing the mischief trial, delivered her verdict, finding both Lich and Barber guilty of mischief.

Perkins-McVey seemed to agree with the Crown’s case that Lich and Barber’s influence on the Freedom Convoy constituted public mischief but did dismiss the Crown’s Carter Application accusing Lich and Barber of conspiracy outright.

Lich and Barber both faced six charges each, those being charges of mischief, obstruction, intimidation, and counseling others to commit mischief and intimidation. After the court reconvened Thursday afternoon, Lich was acquitted of four of her six charges, with the fifth charge, counseling to commit mischief, being stayed by the judge.

As for sentencing, the court will reconvene on April 16 at 1:30 p.m. EST, at which time it will say when a date and time for sentencing will be held.

Lich and Barber both face a possible 10-year prison sentence. LifeSiteNews has reported extensively on their trial.

The Lich and Barber trial concluded in September 2024, more than a year after it began. It was only originally scheduled to last 16 days.

Lich and Barber were arrested on February 17, 2022, in Ottawa for their roles in leading the popular Freedom Convoy protest against COVID mandates. During COVID, Canadians were subjected to vaccine mandates, mask mandates, extensive lockdowns and even the closure of churches.

Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act to clear out protesters, an action a federal judge has since said was “not justified.” During the clear-out, an elderly lady was trampled by a police horse and many who donated to the cause had their bank accounts frozen.

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Trump’s new NIH head fires top Fauci allies and COVID shot promoters, including Fauci’s wife

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From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

“During the pandemic Fauci’s bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, offered nurses a choice: Get vaccinated, or lose your job,” noted The COVID-19 History Project on X. “Yesterday, she was offered a choice: Transfer to an office in Alaska, or lose your job. What’s fair is fair. Everyone deserves a choice,” explained the COVID watchdog account.

On day one of his new job as head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya removed four powerful agency heads, including Dr. Anthony Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, and others associated with the questionable handling of the COVID-19 shots.

Grady, who had served as chief of the agency’s Department of Bioethics, and other longtime Fauci allies in top posts at the NIH involved in the development and distribution of the untested COVID shots produced by Big Pharma were offered jobs in Alaska and other remote locales far away from the NIH’s sprawling Bethesda, Maryland, complex just outside Washington, D.C.

The purge came amid massive layoffs in health-related agencies under the umbrella of Health and Human Services (HHS), now headed by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement’s founder, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned vaccine safety and American medicine’s focus on treating disease rather than preventing it.

A total of about 20,000 personnel – mostly bureaucrats – or about 25 percent of the HHS workforce have been or will be handed pink slips amid Kennedy’s realignment of the agency.

MAHA critics were quick to call Tuesday’s axing of Fauci confederates as “one of the darkest days in modern scientific history” fueled by Kennedy’s desire to exact revenge on Fauci’s former trusted associates who represent the antithesis of the MAHA movement.

However, the revamping of the federal government’s side of the health industry is no more harsh than the treatment meted out by those formerly in control who, at best, suppressed, and worst, punished those who questioned their iron grip on health-industry regulations and standards.

For years, Kennedy’s critics have dismissed his quest to revamp healthcare and his questioning of the efficacy of the COVID-19 mRNA jabs as anti-science, labeling him as an “anti-vaxxer” in order to suppress his messaging.

Dr. Francis Collins – whom Bhattacharya replaced as head of NIH – in an October 2020 email to Fauci condemned Bhattacharya as a “fringe epidemiologist” because he had co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which criticized harmful COVID lockdown policies.

“During the pandemic Fauci’s bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, offered nurses a choice: Get vaccinated, or lose your job,” noted The COVID-19 History Project on X.

“Yesterday, she was offered a choice: Transfer to an office in Alaska, or lose your job. What’s fair is fair. Everyone deserves a choice,” explained the COVID watchdog account.

“We spend 4X more than Italy on healthcare — and live 7 years less. Dead last in cancer rates. This isn’t science — it’s a system profiting off sick kids,” explained Calley Means, RFK Jr. HHS advisor during an interview with Laura Ingraham following the NIH firings.

“Firing the people who oversaw this? That’s step one,” declared Means.

Other NIH officials who were offered reassignments were Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who succeeded Fauci as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Clifford Lane, a close Fauci ally who served as deputy director for clinical research at NIAID, and Dr. Emily Erbelding, NIAID’s microbiology and infectious diseases director.

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