Transcript

Duffy's lawyer accuses Nigel Wright of forcing senator to accept PMO deal

2015

Overview

It was a very different tone in an Ottawa courtroom today as the prime minister's former chief of staff testified at the [Mike Duffy] trial for a second day. Today it was the defence's turn with [Nigel Wright]. The exchanges were sometimes testy as Duffy's lawyer accused Wright of helping to engineer \"a deliberately deceptive scenario\" to make Canadians believe Duffy had paid back his expenses--a scenario he suggested that the Prime Minister knew about and approved. Senior Correspondent Terry Milewski was at the courthouse again today. Terry? In fact, [Stephen Harper] was told by Wright that Duffy's expenses might indeed be justified but because they looked bad, Wright said the government was going to be happy if people thought that Duffy had repaid. Bayne challenged him: \"But he hadn't repaid--you had paid... The object was to inflict on Duffy and the Canadian public a deceptive scenario...the government would be happy if people...were deceived into thinking Duffy had repaid... Your Tory voter base, that's worried about probity, they weren't gonna like this. ... This was political damage control--this wasn't doing a good deed.\" Wright replied: \"I was happy if people thought he repaid ... I didn't think it was meaningfully different that I contributed. All of which provided more ammunition for the opposition. Well, he did. Duffy is accused among other things of making bogus claims for a trip to Vancouver allegedly for pre-budget consultations. And yesterday Nigel Wright testified that he didn't think Duffy had anything to do with those consultations. But today [Don Bayne] produced, (a), Duffy's report on those talks and, (b), Nigel Wright's own reply thanking Duffy for his input. [PETER MANSBRIDGE]?

• Publisher: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
• Subject: CHARLIE ANGUS / DONALD BAYNE / JUSTIN TRUDEAU / KORY TENEYCKE / MIKE DUFFY / PETER MANSBRIDGE / ROB WALSH / STEPHEN HARPER / TERRY MILEWSKI