On 20 January 2014, Rennard was suspended from the Liberal Democrats; he was informed that this was on the basis of "Media and social media comments made by you, endorsed by you and made on your behalf that have attacked the party and the party processes publicly since the announcement of the Webster report results." Lord Rennard's friend and legal adviser, Lord Carlile, wrote a strongly critical article in "The Mail on Sunday" about "the party's unjust and arbitrary conduct of the case". The week following the suspension, "The Times" reported from 'allies' of Rennard that the peer knew "where the bodies are buried" and that were he expelled from the Liberal Democrats he would reveal two decades of sex scandal in the Party: "We have had a Cuban missile crisis over the past week."