Sen. Mike Duffy's defence lawyer hammered away at Nigel Wright’s assertion that he was doing a “good deed” by helping the senator repay his expenses, instead saying it was a political cover-up designed to deceive the public.
Duffy's lawyer, Donald Bayne, opened his cross-examination of Wright, Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff and a star witness in the criminal trial over Senate expense claims, on Thursday by introducing four binders filled with emails into evidence at the Ottawa courthouse.
The emails formed part of Bayne's defence as he questioned Wright about the $90,000 personal cheque he wrote and gave to the senator.
“The position of the defence is: this wasn’t principles or morals; this was sheer political damage control,” Bayne said in court.
As Wright took the stand for a second day of testimony, Bayne suggested it was Wright and PMO aides -- not his client -- who formulated the secret deal to have Duffy say publicly that he had mistakenly claimed living expenses.
Bayne also questioned Wright on whether he forced Duffy into the deal.
“I was persistent and eventually he agreed,” Wright said.
“What you call agreement, I would suggest, sir, is capitulation,” Bayne said. “It’s not agreement when you have to force someone to do something.”
That secret repayment is part of the Crown's case against Duffy, who faces 31 charges including fraud of government, bribery, and breach of public trust relating to his Senate expense claims.
Duffy has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A slew of email exchanges introduced in court shed light on what was going in the PMO at the time of the Duffy repayment deal, and the number of aides that were aware of the secret Duffy bailout plan.
Among the emails introduced in court was a thread mentioning CTV Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife, who was pursuing a story reporting that Wright had paid Duffy's expenses. In an email sent the morning of May 14, 2013, PMO spokesperson Andrew MacDougall contacted Wright and two PMO staffers to give them a "heads up" that Fife was investigating.
"Fife has asked me if Nigel co-signed a loan to help Duffy pay off debts to Senate," MacDougall wrote. "Fife knows Party didn't pay Duffy sums. I am neither confirming, nor denying any Nigel involvement."
PMO staffer Carl Vallee replied to the email, asking if the PM would "know the actual answer to the question? Just in case he asks us."
Wright replied: "The PM knows, in broad terms only, that I personally assisted Duffy when I was getting him to agree to repay the expenses. On the specific matter, I did not co-sign a loan."
That same night, Fife reported on CTV National News that Wright secretly intervened to help pay back the money.
Chris Woodcock, the PMO's director of issues management, emailed Duffy almost immediately after the newscast aired, at 10:30 p.m. on May 14. "Have you seen the story?" Woodcock asked. "Someone is showing Fife your emails."
After breaking down the sources in the story, Woodcock advised Duffy to "stick to the same answer you gave Fife: that you repaid, but no taxpayer money was involved."
After a full day of examining Wright on Wednesday, the Crown had a few more questions for him regarding the $90,000 payment on Thursday. Wright testified that he decided to pay for Duffy's expenses "a day or two" after learning the Conservative Party would not. He said he told Woodcock so he would be informed when "preparing responses" to the media.
"My view was, I was helping out. I was doing a good deed," he said. "It's Matthew 6: Do things quietly, not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing."
The Bible verse Wright referred to is Matthew 6:3. In the New American Standard Version of the Bible, the full line reads: "But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." The preceding passage advises the reader not to "sound a trumpet" when giving money to the poor.
At a campaign stop in Regina on Thursday, Harper said at the time, his concern in “this entire matter” was that Duffy was “making use of taxpayers’ dollars in a way that could not be justified.”
Whether it was “within the rules or not,” Harper said, Duffy was making expense claims that “did not represent real expenses and I have said repeatedly that I could not justify paying expense claims for expenses that were not actually incurred.”
Harper said he was told Duffy was going to make the repayment, and would “explain his own story on that.”
“That to my knowledge was exactly what he did until I found out otherwise,” Harper said. “When I found out otherwise, I took steps to make sure the people that are responsible for that have been held accountable.”
On Wednesday, Wright testified about a "scenario for repayment" in which the PMO would cover Duffy's expenses, the senator would admit to a "possible error" on his expense forms, and the potential scandal would quietly go away.
A series of emails revealed in court show how Duffy's lawyer pressed for a number of concessions from Wright and the PMO, including a promise to cover Duffy's costs, and to withdraw his name from a Deloitte audit of Senate expenses.
Wright testified that he did not tell Harper he planned to cover Duffy's expenses as part of a repayment deal. Wright said Harper was aware of the repayment deal "in very broad terms," but only insofar as that the issue would be resolved. He added that the prime minister told Duffy he should repay the expenses.
Wright told the court he initially thought Duffy owed about $32,000 to cover expense claims, and that he had planned to cover that, along with legal costs, using money from the Conservative Party coffers. He said he became "furious" when, a few weeks after reaching a deal, he learned that Duffy would have to pay closer to $80,000, plus legal costs. The party balked at paying the higher sum, so Wright said he would cover Duffy's costs himself to allow the deal to go forward.
He testified he felt he had an "obligation" to help Duffy repay his expenses, after the Conservative Party backed out of doing it. He added that he "lived to regret it."
Following a policy announcement in Saskatoon Thursday, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau blasted the PMO for engaging in an “elaborate cover-up.”
“Canadians should be able to trust that the prime minister and his office tell the truth,” Trudeau said. “It’s become clear that instead they engaged in an elaborate cover-up. Canadians deserve better.”
Harper’s ethics ‘in question’
The chief of staff during the Chretien administration criticized Harper’s decision to keep key senior staff after they were highly involved in an attempt to quiet the Duffy Senate expense scandal.
Eddie Goldenberg said the emails released in the Duffy trial demonstrate the lengths Harper’s top staff members went to in order to smooth over the Duffy scandal.
Goldenberg said Harper’s decision to keep some of those staff members after the scandal does not bode well for his ethics as a prime minister.
“He knew that they were involved in trying to change the Senate report, they were involved in talking about how you influence an auditing firm, and what did he do? Did he fire them? No, he kept them,” said Goldenberg.
“I think that it’s the judgment of the prime minister and the prime minister’s ethics that are really in question on this.”
With files from CTV field producer Philip Ling
Emails from Nigel Wright in connection with the Mike Duffy trial.
