"It is regrettable that the First Minister's statement on 8 January 2019 did not include a reference to the meeting with Mr Aberdein on 29 March. In my opinion, however her explanation for why she did not recall this meeting when giving her account to Parliament, while inevitably likely to be greeted with suspicion, even scepticism by some, is not impossible. What tilts the balance towards accepting the First Minister’s account for me is that I find it difficult to think of any convincing reason why if she had in fact recalled the meeting she
would have deliberately concealed it while disclosing all the conversations she had had with Mr Salmond. Furthermore, given that the meeting was with Mr Aberdein who was expected to report it back to Mr Salmond it would have been naive to think that the meeting would remain secret given the First Minister’s poor relationship with Mr Salmond at that point. "
Translation; well she could be telling the truth, and surely she's not stupid enough to lie knowing Salmond would out her.
Christ sake. Is the issue here that this is actually bloody narrow in scope? For all it was said he had a wider scope than the committee I don't think that's the case at all. Why would she lie makes sense in isolation, but not when you have the fuller picture.