Duffy claims he never knew where the money came from, emails show

OTTAWA— Sen. Mike Duffy claimed that he did not know where the money to repay his questionable expenses had come from until Ray Novak told him Nigel Wright had picked up the tab, according to emails released in court Monday.

On May 16, 2013, Chris Woodcock, then director of issues management in the Prime Minister’s Office, forwarded to Duffy a CTV News story that confirmed Wright, who was then chief of staff to Stephen Harper, had provided Duffy with the $90,172 he needed to repay the disputed claims.

That story, published online the day before, said Duffy had originally told CTV News in an email May 13 that he had repaid the expenses with a bank loan and that Wright “played no role.” “Is your quote below taken out of context?” Woodcock, whose job it was to help manage the political fallout from the Senate expenses scandal, asked Duffy in the email.

Duffy, who has pleaded not guilty to 31 charges, including bribery, fraud and breach of trust, replied to Wood- cock by email that it had.

“Because I did not know until Ray Novak told me that Nigel (had) given the money. I was told I would be made whole. I said I did not want to know the name of the donor because I did not want to be beholding (sic) to anyone,” Duffy said in the May 16 email released Thursday.

“I negotiated the loan and Heather (Duffy’s wife) co-signed. I wrote the cheque and some time later a credit appeared in my account,” Duffy wrote in the email.

Duffy does not say in the email, which was sent after the news became public, when it was that Novak told him this. The original agreement, according to testimony and court documents, was to have the Conservative party cover Duffy’s expenses, but that part of the plan fell part when it was discovered the senator owed nearly three times as much as originally thought. Novak, who was principal secretary to Harper at the time, is now his chief of staff, a role he assumed after Wright left the job several days after it emerged he had provided the cheque.