Duffy trial pulls in Harper’s chief of staff

“This is sort of Matthew 6, right?” he told court, citing Scripture.

As he testified, $90,000 wasn’t going to put a dent in his net worth.

There is, apparently, no biblical verse to justify that.

On the whole, Bayne sought to strip away Wright’s self-constructed choirboy image.

First Nations chiefs, who have a testy relationship with the Conservatives, have said aboriginal votes could affect as many as 51 ridings, almost half of them held by the ruling Tories. The PMO arranged for Mr. Duffy to say he was personally repaying the expenses, even though he wasn’t.

A day earlier, he had participated in part of a conference call involving Duffy’s lawyer Janice Payne, the prime minister’s lawyer Benjamin Perrin and Wright. They only turned on the PEI senator when political damage control required that they do so.

Wright told court he tried to quietly do a “good deed” when he gave Duffy $90,000.

Mr. Bayne spent much of the afternoon grilling Mr. Wright over lengthy email exchanges, which Mr. Wright provided to the RCMP during its investigation of Senator Duffy.

There were two Nigel Wrights in the witness box on Thursday.

“I thought it may come out that I paid”, Wright said.

Wright still believed that Duffy might have a good legal and technical case.

If it became public, he thought he would be embarrassed and admits he didn’t think through all the connotations of the decision.

While rejecting suggestions from Mr. Duffy’s defence lawyer that the secret payment from Mr. Wright was a deliberate “deception” to avoid further controversy in the expense scandal, Mr. Wright told the courtroom Thursday that he expected the government would be “happy” if the public believed Senator Duffy had repaid the money.

Can a 60-something-year-old man, a veteran broadcaster who had covered politics for decades and was certainly a man of the world, who was being advised throughout this process by his own lawyer (her bills were covered, of course), really be forced to take a $90,000 gift which, had the conspiracy been more successful, might have seen Duffy save his own rear even as the government was saving its own?

Opposition parties say the scandal shows the Conservatives should be turfed from power.

Hamilton felt that Wright was scarred by his experience having worked in the Mulroney government, which was rocked by series of scandals that resulted in the resignations of a number of rookie cabinet ministers.

It may reflect the language of the true believer, and Wright is one of those. The Chief of Staff was willing to go to great lengths, Hamilton implied, to prevent the Harper government from becoming engulfed by similar scandals.

Harper rejected the premise of questions that Novak had been involved in deceiving the public, or hiding the truth of the situation from Harper.

Emails between PMO staffers show statements saying Harper knew about the money “in broad terms only”.

Documents previously released already made clear that Wright had informed Harper’s former director of issues management, Chris Woodcock, of his intention to repay.

“That, to my knowledge, was exactly what he did until I found out otherwise”.

“I did not attach the significance to my being the source of those funds that everybody else has”, Wright said.

Wright’s testimony continues on Friday. Tougher days of cross-examination loom but nothing burst onto the campaign trail Wednesday.