The Prime Minister’s Office pressured Sen. Mike Duffy to repay ineligible housing expenses and fed him talking points on the matter in an effort to make a story that had become a political liability go away, Duffy’s lawyer charged Monday.
During an almost hour-long press conference in Ottawa, Donald Bayne told reporters that both Senate leadership and the Prime Minister’s Office had cleared Duffy’s housing claims for his home in Prince Edward Island.
But as scrutiny over senators’ living and travel expenses grew, the PMO began orchestrating a campaign to get Duffy’s expenses out of the headlines, Bayne said.
“He’s become too hot politically,” Bayne said. “He’s gone from being one of their greatest political assets to one of their greatest political liabilities.”
Bayne read from a handful of emails and memorandums during his news conference, but said they were only the “tip of the evidentiary iceberg.”
According to Bayne, shortly after Duffy was appointed to the Senate in early 2009, he sought and received clearance to claim his home in Prince Edward Island as his primary residence.
Bayne noted that the Senate finance committee “repeatedly and consistently over the years approved the living allowance claim.”
However, when questions about senators’ expense claims began percolating, Bayne said, Duffy checked in with the PMO in late 2012, and received a response from the prime minister’s then-chief of staff Nigel Wright.
“I am told that you have complied with all the applicable rules and there would be several senators with similar arrangements,” Bayne said, reading from an email sent from Wright to Duffy on Dec. 2, 2012.
However, as allegations about inappropriate expenses grew, the PMO “ratcheted up the heat” on Duffy, Bayne said.
He quoted from another email, sent by Duffy to his then-lawyer on Feb. 20, 2013, in which he described a telephone conversation with Wright from the night before.
“He was expansive, saying we (the PMO) have been working on lines and a scenario for you that would cover all of your concerns, including cash for repayment,” Bayne quoted the email as saying. That email was forwarded to Chris Woodcock, former director of issues management in the PMO who left the job in July.
Bayne said that a threat was also conveyed to Duffy that if he did not go along with the “scenario,” Senate leadership would move to oust him from the Senate.
In the end, Wright gave Duffy $90,000 to repay ineligible living expenses, a deal Bayne said Duffy resisted.
“It was a payment, it was a scenario that was created, in Nigel Wright’s own words, for Sen. Duffy,” Bayne said.
“Not because he had anything to hide or made inappropriate claims, but because the PMO had decided they wanted to sweep a political embarrassment to their Tory base under the rug.”
The $90,000 payment, Bayne said, “was not the doing of Sen. Duffy. It was a political tactic forced on him by the Prime Minister’s Office. He was not trying to buy himself out of trouble.”
Bayne would not provide copies of the emails to reporters.
When asked by reporters if Wright was acting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s knowledge, Bayne replied that he “does have some information” but that will only be revealed if Duffy were to have to defend himself against any criminal charges.
Shortly after Bayne’s press conference, the PMO released a two-line statement to CTV News saying: "This file was handled by Nigel Wright and he has taken sole responsibility. We are assisting with ongoing investigations into this matter."
The prime minister has long maintained that Wright acted alone when he helped Duffy repay his expenses, and only learned of the deal when media reports unveiled it in May.
But the opposition has hammered the prime minister in the House of Commons over what he knew and when he knew it, and those questions continued after Bayne’s press conference.
Neither NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair nor Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was in the House for Monday’s question period. However, Deputy NDP Leader Megan Leslie asked the prime minister if he would make all documents relating to the Wright-Duffy deal public.
“Mike Duffy’s lawyer says he’s in possession of documents that implicate the prime minister,” Leslie said. “So is the PMO really going to wait for Mr. Duffy’s lawyer to release this evidence?”
Harper replied: “We’ve given all information to those authorities who are looking into this matter. And we’ve been very clear, if anybody doesn’t respect the rules they will be held accountable. That is the standard Canadians expect, and that is what we will continue to do.”
Harper gave a similar answer when asked whether the government provided talking points to Duffy, and if his office threatened to kick Duffy out of the Senate if he didn’t comply with the deal.
Deputy Liberal Leader Ralph Goodale asked “how is it credible for the prime minister to deny all knowledge when every important person in his entourage was involved,” and suggested voters in four upcoming by-elections may not believe the story.
Harper replied that “as has been said before, Mr. Wright has accepted full responsibility for his decision on these matters.”
The RCMP is investigating Duffy, Sen. Patrick Brazeau and former senator Mac Harb on allegations of fraud and breach of trust after outside audits found thousands of dollars of ineligible expenses. An audit that found more than $100,000 of ineligible travel expenses claimed by Sen. Pamela Wallin has also been referred to the Mounties.
When asked if the PMO told Duffy not to co-operate with auditors, Bayne replied: “In effect, yes.”
On Tuesday, a motion is to be voted on in the Senate to suspend Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau without pay.
Bayne accused the Senate of acting “like a mob to sentence Sen. Duffy without a hearing, without knowing the evidence and without, strangely, waiting for the very RCMP investigation which they called for, without waiting for that due investigation to conclude its work.”
Bayne called the motion “nothing less than a severely punitive sentence without a trial or proper hearing.”
“It’s shameful, shocking, unconstitutional,” Bayne said,
Hours before the Senate unveiled its motion last week, Duffy indicated that he would be taking an indefinite leave of absence due to health problems. Duffy had open-heart surgery years ago, and he said that he experienced chest pains over the summer. His doctor has advised him to remain off work, he said.
