Ex-aide testifies he never read Wright’s email
Former PR strategist for PMO merely ‘skimmed’ crucial note from his boss
OTTAWA— The former communications strategist in charge of crafting the government’s public response to controversial issues says he never read an email from Nigel Wright that said he would personally pay Mike Duffy $90,000 — at least not until months later.
Chris Woodcock is the third senior Harper aide to testify at Duffy’s trial for fraud, bribery and breach of trust. On Monday, he testified he merely “skimmed” over the crucial email from Wright — Stephen Harper’s chief of staff at the time — and didn’t realize his boss was covering Duffy’s tab.
“For you only, I am personally covering Duffy’s $90k,” Wright wrote.
The email was dated March 8, 2013, two months before Duffy’s expense repayment story exploded following a CTV report that Wright had helped Duffy repay his expenses that spring. Woodcock, who now works for CMHC, was then the director of issues management in the Prime Minister’s Office, a job that he told the RCMP in a statement read out in court that involved briefing Harper on “everything that would ruin his day.”
Woodcock said he simply failed to read all the way down the seven-line email from Wright and didn’t realize that he’d been told a critical fact until June 2013 when he says he went back through his emails. It was weeks after CTV broke the embarrassing story that Wright had covered Duffy’s bill, by which time Wright had resigned. Woodcock also admitted he never told the prime minister that the Conservative Fund of Canada was set to pay Duffy’s bill, when it was pegged at $32,000, though he’d been involved in and copied on a flurry of communications between the beleaguered senator, his lawyer, and the PMO.
Woodcock, now 33, said he was flooded by daily emails in his job, at work by 4:30 or 5 a.m. to start fighting all the fires that cropped up. He told Duffy’s lawyer, Donald Bayne, he didn’t expect Bayne could “comprehend” what his workday was like, receiving 700 to 1,000 emails a day.
Still, Bayne acidly pointed out that Wright was responding to Woodcock’s own email on the “hot issue” of Duffy’s expenses. Woodcock had forwarded a media query — whether Conservative Party funds were going to be used to help pay for Sen. Pamela Wallin or Duffy’s disputed Senate ex- penses. Wright told Woodcock the query should be answered, that in general the party would cover expenses incurred only on party business, and — “fyi” — the party would not be picking up any of Duffy’s housing expenses.
Woodcock acknowledged Wright had replied to his personal Gmail account, on the same BlackBerry that Woodcock used for government business, an effort that he described as trying to keep party and government business separate.
Wright has already testified he wrote that to Woodcock to say he was the source of Duffy’s funds so Woodcock would not give out inaccurate information.
It was more than two weeks before March 26, when Wright had another PMO staffer handle the transfer of his personal bank draft f or $90,172.24 to Duffy’s lawyer.
Bayne scoffed at Woodcock’s explanations. “So the party’s going to pay and it would be kept secret right?” Bayne asked.
“That’s what the email says,” agreed Woodcock.
“And you don’t think that’s important from an issues management point of view?” Bayne challenged him repeatedly.
“I didn’t at the time, clearly today it reads as much more important than it did at the time,” said Woodcock.
Woodcock’s testimony offers a partial explanation as to how at least one other aide in the PMO, who many presumed was in the know about Wright’s payment, apparently failed to flag it to either Harper or anyone else as a looming political disaster. (Wright has testified he didn’t deem it a “significant” detail to pass on to Harper.)
If believed, it may also explain why, in the early weeks after news of the $90,000 payment by Wright was reported on May 14, 2013, the prime minister continued to tell the public that no one on his staff knew.
Emails in evidence show there were up to 13 PMO and senior Conservative officials who knew about it.
It is the Crown’s proposition that Duffy was an equal partner, if not the instigator, of the scheme to get his expenses paid.