Duffy vowed he’d topple high-ranking Tories: Book
OTTAWA — Embattled Sen. Mike Duffy vowed that if he ever faced trial over his questionable expense claims, he would bring down high-ranking members of the Conservative party, according to a new book.
Duffy believed he had been set up by the Prime Minister’s Office, as part of Stephen Harper’s “Machiavellian” plot to abolish the Senate or “severely clip its wings,” writes Dan Leger in his new book, Duffy: Stardom to Senate to Scandal.
“Duffy seemed determined that, if he were to go down, he would have company, telling friends that, if charged, people high up in the Conservative Party would be called to testify to what they knew,” Leger writes in the book.
Leger, a former Parliament Hill reporter and retired newspaper editor, said in an interview with Postmedia News, Duffy was “speaking darkly about a ‘setup by the PMO,’” as early as May 2013, when the details of a deal to secretly pay his questionable expenses were made public and Duffy was pushed out of the Conservative caucus. Duffy also spoke with Leger on the porch of his home in Cavendish, P.E.I., last August, laying out many of the explosive details he would later level in the Senate. He now faces the possibility of being criminally charged by the RCMP over allegations of fraud and breach of trust related to his questionable living claims and a $90,000 payment he accepted from Nigel Wright, Harper’s then-chief of staff.
“Without a doubt, Duffy believes he is the fall guy, that he and (Sen.) Pam (Wallin) … are taking the fall in order to protect the prime minister,” Leger said in an interview.
Leger’s book is due out this week.