OTTAWA - Conservative government officials dealt with business inquiries by former MP Rahim Jaffer as a "priority" and sometimes pushed bureaucrats to speed up their responses to his projects, documents obtained by The Canadian Press show.

And Jaffer sometimes used a parliamentary email address assigned to the office of his wife -- Helena Guergis, the former minister of state for the status of women -- when contacting Conservatives he knew in government.

The documents were tabled Wednesday with the Commons government operations committee, the same day as MPs heard testimony from Nazim Gillani, a business associate of Jaffer's who has been a key figure in the allegations against him.

Gillani simultaneously contradicted Jaffer and backed him up. On the one hand, he told the committee their business relationship was formal and lasted well into 2010, refuting Jaffer's claim that their talks dissolved last September.

But on the other hand, Gillani said he did not believe Jaffer was engaged in formal lobbying and described allegations of offshore accounts and compromising photos of Jaffer and Guergis as an "absolute lie."

Gillani and Jaffer had been looking at a handful of projects together, and Jaffer was to determine their eligibility for federal funding.

Those projects, and others, were detailed in over 50 pages of documents tabled by the government with the committee, the commissioner of lobbying, and the ethics commissioner.

At least six ministerial offices were contacted by Jaffer relating to business queries.

There is no suggestion projects Jaffer was working on ever received government funding, but his requests for meetings or information were dealt with swiftly.

In one message exchange with Doug Maley, an assistant deputy minister at Western Economic Diversification Canada, the two exchange pleasantries about Jaffer's recent graduate degree, a golf date, and a mercury capture project in Alberta.

"Can you have someone review this on a priority basis as I need to get back to Rahim this Friday afternoon on whether this may be of interest to WD," Maley writes to another bureaucrat.

A lengthy email trail among officials at Public Works show they scrambled last fall -- at the request of Minister Christian Paradis' office -- to set up a meeting with "former Member of Parliament" Jaffer's company on a proposal to install solar panels on the roofs of federal buildings.

"This request comes from minister's office," says one email, rated "high" in importance.

"Sorry to be a pest . . . but MO is asking when?" says another.

At one point, Paradis' director of parliamentary affairs laments: "The sector has had this for weeks. What's the hold up?"

Another Conservative staffer, from the Calgary office of Environment Minister Jim Prentice, tells a fellow Conservative that "we should talk to this Patrick Glemaud and see if we can set up a tech briefing when he is in Calgary." That note followed a meeting on Parliament Hill and an email exchange with Jaffer.

Jaffer and Glemaud have maintained they never lobbied any government official, but were simply seeking information about various renewable energy projects. The Lobbying Act exempts simple queries about programs and their terms and conditions.

New Democrat MP Pat Martin said the committee will push to recall Jaffer because it's now clear he was involved in "illegal lobbying."