OTTAWA – The prime minister’s office went to great lengths to protect Mike Duffy from public scrutiny and to prevent him from going “squirrelly” on political talk shows, new documents suggest.
Police transcripts released by Duffy’s lawyer as part of a court motion application provide new details on the degree to which the PMO and Conservative senators tried to shield Duffy from criticism as the Senate expense scandal raged in 2013.
The RCMP interviews took place in September 2013 with Jill Anne Joseph, then the Senate’s director of internal audit and strategic planning, and Senate clerk Gary O’Brien.
READ MORE: 12 highlights from the Wright-Duffy investigation
In one February 2013 email read by police, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, tells other PMO officials that he wanted to put Duffy in a “different bucket” than senators Harb and Brazeau, to “prevent him from going squirrelly in a bunch of weekend panel shows.”
Another Tory official, Chris Montgomery, wrote to Wright, Conservative Sen. Marjory LeBreton, and another staff member on February 7 that he was in touch with Conservative David Tkachuk regarding independent legal advice for assessing Duffy’s residency.
READ MORE: PMO ‘influenced’ Senate report into Mike Duffy’s expenses, court documents allege
“I just got off the phone with Tkachuk on the advice of the Clerk (of the Senate), they’re going to say that the Chair and Deputy Chair of the (Senate internal economy committee) requested independent legal advice as opposed to referring to the Steering committee, so as to not make it an official process in order to protect Senator Duffy.”
Cpl. Benoit Jolette asks O’Brien, “who’s idea was this and what was the goal of…protecting Senator Duffy, why?”
“I, I don’t know,” O’Brien replies.
Watch: Thomas Mulcair manages to work Richard Nixon, #Duffygate into one question
The documents further show two Conservative senators on the three-member Senate steering committee, Tkachuk and Carolyn Stewart Olsen, worked to change a May 2013 report based on the Deloitte audit of Duffy’s expenses to remove details and criticisms.
Tkachuk even made some changes outside of committee in O’Brien’s office, the documents show.
The PMO also wanted the audit to stop once Duffy repaid his expenses, later revealed to be with Wright’s $90,000.
An email from Stewart Olsen to Wright on March 1, 2013, reads: “I think the only way to do this is to tell Deloitte that we are satisfied with the repayment and end the audit,” she writes.
“The nonpartisan nature of the committee is a problem as is the Clerk who seems to have his own agenda, mind you it is a good agenda, he wants to clean up the place.”
Duffy faces 31 charges of breach and trust and one of fraud. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
In question period Thursday, NDP leader Tom Mulcair called the evidence “pure Richard Nixon.”
“The Duffygate coverup was orchestrated right in the Prime Minister’s Office. That is what these RCMP court documents prove. Why will the Prime Minister not answer?”
Harper’s parliamentary secretary, Paul Calandra, would only answer that the matter is before the courts.
The trial continues Friday but breaks for three-weeks until June 1.
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