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Bill Blair has some explaining to do

What if we’ve been had?

What if the cops already had their chance to bust Rob Ford and blew it? It seems improbable.

We’ll know more by Friday, December 6, 4:30 pm when the transcripts of wiretapped cellphone conversations between the mayor and his alleged drug dealer Alexander Lisi – those related to Lisi’s arrest on drug trafficking and extortion charges – are scheduled to be released by the court. They’re the latest in a serial release of documents that has had Toronto on the edge of its seat since the Ford crack scandal broke.

Phone conversations between Ford and David Price, his former head of logistics/bodyguard, will also be un-redacted from the documents.

Chances are they’ll confirm what we already know – that Ford was involved in efforts by Lisi and Price to retrieve the mysterious video showing the mayor smoking crack.

To recap, because it’s important to remember the totality of it all: efforts to retrieve the video reportedly included a visit by someone with a metal pipe to the house of the mayor’s high school bud, Fabio Basso, a house which is also a known hangout and crack chop shop for gangbangers.

There has also been some suggestion that efforts to retrieve the video may be related to a shooting incident at the nearby Dixon highrises. And, the shooting death outside a King West club in March of Anthony Smith who, according to the mayor’s former staff the mayor knew, though it’s unclear how. Smith is one of three Bloods in that infamous pose with the mayor outside Basso’s house that’s now famous worldwide.

Crazy stuff.

The Star’s editor Michael Cooke, who has seen what’s in the transcripts to be released Friday, owing to his proximity to Star lawyers who’ve been in court with other media orgs fighting for the release of the documents, is promising “more stunning” revelations.

Which only makes me wonder more why there haven’t been criminal charges yet laid against the mayor. I suspect that’s because there’s nothing in the transcripts to warrant them, otherwise they would have already been laid. Or would they?

The cops have been given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their investigation, which started from wiretap conversations picked up during the Project Traveller probe into guns and gangs in the city’s northwest end.

What is known about the phone conversations between Lisi and the mayor in court documents made public so far is that few are more than a minute long in duration. It seems that whatever sensitive discussions were had between the two about the crack video, or anything else, were had face-to-face, most notably in a meeting at the mayor’s daughter’s soccer game this summer which lasted about an hour. Police noted the mayor watching a video on a cellphone handed to him by Lisi after which the two became involved in an animated conversation.

Like most Torontonians, I don’t want to contemplate the alternative: that there was enough evidence to tie Ford to efforts to retrieve the crack video, but the cops decided not to charge him because, well, he’s the mayor. Maybe the cops figured there was enough to embarrass him out of office.

The real troubling part about that, aside from the obvious favoritism it shows on the part of police, is that the Crown attorney’s office has been kept in the loop on all this from the start. And so the highest rungs of the province’s justice system would have to be complicit in any decision not to charge.

Is there another thread in the police investigation? There have been conflicting messages from the cops on that, which have somewhat been lost in the fog of it all.

Where the mayor is concerned, the chief has left the impression more is coming, even while refusing to answer directly whether the mayor is under investigation.

“There has been an investigation ongoing and we continue to gather the evidence,” he said October 31 at a press conference to announce that police had retrieved the Ford crack video and laid extortion charges against Lisi.

He says police have pursued every investigative avenue, “without fear and without favour. That’s what we’ve done. And where we’ve had evidence of criminal behavior that supports a charge, we’ve laid those charges.”

According to the chief’s point man on the job, Detective Sergeant Gary Giroux, several requests have been made by the police to interview Ford, without success.

That police have made the request suggests Ford is implicated in criminal behavior. So why he hasn’t been compelled to submit to an interview with police is at the very least curious. What other citizen would be afforded such a courtesy?

Is what we’re witnessing then, with the police investigation and slow release of the Lisi ITO, a shaming meant to embarrass Ford to resign? And if that doesn’t work, which it hasn’t, grind whatever is left of his political reputation into the ground?

Maybe it’s enough that Ford has been stripped of his powers and been politically marginalized. He’s like the bearded lady at the circus now, the freak show everybody wants to watch. (See: his weird appearances around town.)

I’ve been told by a former longtime Crown attorney with the province whose opinion I trust that Blair wouldn’t be risking his career on this one. There has to be more to the story.

But what if Blair is banking on the Ford probe to save his job? Ford has wanted Blair gone from the get-go. Blair’s position has been precarious since Ford stacked the Police Services Board against him. The last time the mayor found himself in a compromising position and there was audio evidence (see Ford’s 911 freak-out) Blair intervened to come to the mayor’s defense.

But now the province seems to have Blair’s back – did you see the smiley shots at the policemen’s ball with the Premier? – making it known that it’s willing to give council the powers to remove Ford from office if council wants them.

It’s a clear invitation, if Blair was looking for one, to stick a fork in Ford. He still may. It’s difficult to see council not taking the province up on its offer should there be charges laid against the mayor.

Maybe Blair will surprise us all again. Like he did on Halloween. Maybe he has another ace up his sleeve. Blair let slip about the presence of another video at his October 31 presser, although it’s not clear that there’s any criminal activity related to that. If the rumours are to be believed, it’s more of the same.

Defense lawyer Clayton Ruby, one of the few voicing concerns, believes that if the chief had anything on the mayor, we would have heard about it by now.

He says it’s “inexplicable” that Ford hasn’t been charged, given all the police know about his interactions with Lisi. And Ford’s own admission he’s purchased drugs.

Ruby points out that if Ford were a young black man he would have been arrested and thrown in jail by now. Ruby is being political. But he also makes a valid point.

Maybe it’s just weird synchronicity, that while we’ve all been fixated on the Ford monkey business, Blair has been fending off criticisms about the propensity of his officers to randomly stop young black men for reasons that are too often related to the colour of their skin.

If Blair were showing Ford favour, sending out a Cessna to tail his activities from on high would seem like a strange way to do it. But what if there is no larger criminal conspiracy involving the mayor? Come Friday, Blair may have some explaining to do.

enzom@nowtoronto.com | @enzodimatteo

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