Harper/staff worked together to whitewash Mike Duffy report: RCMP
Channel: landlogger
Date: 2013-11-21

Mixed permission PSU News.

Staff in the Prime Minister's Office exerted influence over the Conservative Senate leadership in order to whitewash a Senate report into Mike Duffy's expenses, according to new RCMP documents that also shed more light on the $90,000 bailout deal.

The documents, released Wednesday, reveal a trail of communications between PMO staffers and senators about how best to handle an external audit of Duffy's expenses and a subsequent report by the Senate's internal economy committee.

The emails also show Prime Minister Stephen Harper's then-chief of staff Nigel Wright's growing frustration with Duffy over his reluctance to pay back his expenses, and Wright's ultimate choice to write the senator a personal cheque.
The sworn RCMP affidavit, filed in an Ottawa court, suggests that PMO staff worked with Duffy to make his politically inconvenient expense problems go away, and then ensure a Senate report into his ineligible claims excluded the most damning language.In the affidavit, RCMP Cpl. Greg Horton wrote there was "considerable communication" within the PMO regarding Duffy's Senate investigation. There was also communication between the PMO and Duffy, Senator Marjory LeBreton, who was then government leader in the upper chamber, and Conservative Senators Carolyn Stewart-Olsen and David Thackuk, who were both on the internal economy committee's steering group for the audit process.According to the affidavit, Duffy was ordered by the PMO and Harper to repay some $90,000 in ineligible expenses. In return, Duffy demanded through his lawyer to be withdrawn from the Deloitte audit process, have the government acknowledge that he meets the requirements to sit as a senator for P.E.I., be reimbursed for legal expenses and have Conservative lawmakers speak favourably of him in the media.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/pmo-staff-worked-with-senators-to-whitewash-mike-duffy-report-rcmp-1.1551905#ixzz2lJ9Xzwcj

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/pmo-staff-worked-with-senators-to-whitewash-mike-duffy-report-rcmp-1.1551905#ixzz2lJ8VVpJE
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CBC.

RCMP probe into Wright-Duffy affair reveals 5 new threads

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-probe-into-wright-duffy-affair-reveals-5-new-threads-1.2433672