No Charges Doesn't Mean Wright Is Clean

On Friday, we learned that the RCMP will not be laying charges against Nigel Wright for writing a cheque to Mike Duffy in the amount of some $90,000 and change. 

The CPC, and the PMO, seem to think that this is some kind of exoneration.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The RCMP only lays charges when they have evidence of criminal activity that is sufficiently solid to have a "reasonable expectation of conviction".  If for any reason, the evidence is insufficient to meet that bar, charges are not laid.

In no respect does this mean that what Nigel Wright did was right, nor does it mean that his actions as the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff are either morally or or ethically acceptable.  They may even include a violation of one or more laws in this country, but the RCMP has not turned up enough evidence to be able to have a reasonable chance of conviction.  

Frankly, I have never been convinced that Mr. Wright's actions were criminal per se.  Questionable in their motives, to be certain, but not necessarily illegal.  

However, to say that Mr. Wright's actions were justified simply because charges weren't laid is to ignore the subtle distinction between unethical behaviour and criminal activity.  We have enough of the e-mails that Mr. Wright sent to know that he had made the payment in an effort to make a political problem "go away", and there was little if any love for Mr. Duffy involved.

Ethically, Mr. Wright's actions speak to a man whose idea of solving problems like Mr. Duffy is to throw money at it and hope that it goes away for good.  While not exactly illegal, certainly dubious.  Mr. Wright action in writing a cheque to Mr. Duffy constitutes a political act - one intended to remain in secret so that a political problem could be washed away.  

Obviously, if the $90,000 had come out of the PMO budget, it would of course be a gross misuse of government funds.  Similarly, we know that the Conservative Fund had also refused to underwrite Mr. Duffy's expenses.  In both cases, the bodies involved recognized that using funds available to support Mr. Duffy would have significant consequences if they ever got made public.  

So, Mr. Wright agrees to write Mr. Duffy a cheque for $90,000 from his own bank account, on the proviso that it is kept secret.  At the very least, Mr. Wright's actions fail to meet the test of openness.  We all grew up learning that if we couldn't tell our mothers about what we were doing, we probably shouldn't be doing it.  In Mr. Wright's case, he didn't feel that he could tell the public about it.  

In short, he knew perfectly well that he was covering up something which the public as a whole would view as inappropriate.  From a simple perspective, Mr. Wright's actions would fall into the category that most people would consider unethical.  

Looking at it from a somewhat more business-oriented perspective, the need for a degree of secrecy in a deal such as this seems suspect as well.  Confidentiality is perfectly reasonable in a myriad of business propositions.  However, confidentiality when it is a tool used to cover up even more questionable dealings (such as Mr. Duffy's reasons for abusing expenses, or even his eligibility to sit as a Senator), is generally seen as a violation of reasonable business ethical practices.  Under the terms of the Sarbanes-Oxley act, such deeds in the United States actually carry significant legal penalties with them if they should be discovered.

If Mr. Wright's acts are not criminal per se, they are certainly unethical.  If the ethical bar in Ottawa is now the "It's not a crime, therefore it's okay" (AKA "The Rob Ford Defence"), then it is truly a low bar to meet.  Canadians should rightly demand better of our politicians and their staffs than this.

If Nigel Wright is a "Hero" ...

According to Christie Blatchford, Canadians apparently should revere Nigel Wright and his actions in the Senate Expenses mess.

I don't believe that Mr. Wright was acting in a knowingly criminal manner - I have always thought that he believed firmly that he was acting within the bounds of his job and responsibilities.

However, having said that, Ms. Blatchford's analysis misses a few things.

First, Mr. Wright was smack in the midst of a conspiracy to cover things up when there was a looming audit that was almost guaranteed to generate a lot of bad press.

Second, based on the evidence available to this point, the issue of repaying Duffy's expenses appears to have devolved to Wright after the Conservative Fund (headed up by Senator Gerstein) decided to balk at the amount to be repaid.  Whether or not Wright's action in giving Duffy a cheque for $90,000 were strictly legal, they certainly have the whiff of political cover-up at the very least and poor moral judgment on Wright's part.

The real question that should be asked is why bother with trying to hide the expenses of a single, errant senator?  What about Mike Duffy was so important to the party that they felt it necessary to go to these lengths to protect him from scrutiny?  Would it not have been far simpler to direct Mr. Duffy to his bankers to extend his loans to cover the amount in question?  Last, but far from least, the degree of Mr. Harper's involvement and awareness in this whole mess deserves scrutiny as well.

Mr. Wright is far from the "villain" in all of this.  He no doubt had been told by his boss to "make the problem go away".  He tried ... and failed.  Unfortunately for Mr. Wright, his choice of actions are at best a sign of poor judgment.  He may have acted as the lesser player in the entire mess, but that does not make him any kind of "hero".

How Shocking ...

So, apparently the PMO has "found" a bunch of e-mails that they previous claimed had been deleted.

The emails of Stephen Harper's former legal advisor were not deleted when he left the Prime Minister's Office, according to a letter sent from the Privy Council Office (PCO) to the RCMP. 

Benjamin Perrin, who was named in RCMP documents last week as a player in the deal between Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy, left the PMO in late March. 

The letter released Sunday night states when Perrin left in March, the PCO said they deleted his emails records as part of standard protocol. Last week, the RCMP sent another request to the PMO for Perrin's records to see if there were any backups. 

But it turns out the Perrin's emails were held as part of "unrelated litigation", a discovery the PCO made the next day after PMO asked them to check again.

If this sounds just a little Nixonian to you, it should.   First the records don't exist, then they do.  I'll put even money that the PMO has been busily hacking up the e-mail trail to remove the most damning evidence, and to end up making it look like Perrin never told Harper what was going on.  Which will, incidentally throw Mr. Perrin under the same bus as Mr. Duffy, Mr. Wright and a few others.  In this case, because Mr. Perrin will suddenly find himself under suspicion of failing to carry out the ethical duty of notifying "up the chain of command" when the organization is about to act wrongly).

As far as I am concerned, at this point, the RCMP should walk into the Langevin block armed with warrants for the seizure of all backups of the PMO's e-mail servers, if not the servers themselves.  We already have evidence of the PMO attempting to cover up its activities and involvement in this whole mess.  It is time to lock down every piece of communication related to this.  The RCMP should also ascertain any external e-mail accounts that may have been involved, and issue requests for copies of all data in those accounts for the last couple of years.

Does this sound like a fishing expedition?  To some extent it is.  However, when there is reason to suspect that evidence has been tampered with, a wider net is needed to ensure that we capture the full picture.

However, even if we establish beyond all doubt that Harper really did not know the particulars of the arrangement that resulted in Nigel Wright paying Mike Duffy some $90,000 it does not matter.  At the end of the day, the PMO is Harper's office.  He is not some low level functionary who can be excused for not being fully aware of the consequences of someone's actions.  He is the man at the helm.  The guy in charge.  The man who ultimately has to bear responsibility whether he likes it or not.  Harper has tried desperately not to take responsibility for the actions of his staff.

This is unacceptable.

Canary In The Corruption Part II

The scandal surrounding Mike Duffy continues to produce more revelations.  Today's we learn that the Senate committee's "official" version of Mike Duffy's audit has been sanitized:

A confidential report obtained by CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife shows the original version of Duffy’s audit found that the senator broke the Senate’s “very clear” and “unambiguous” residency rules. 

The report found that Duffy stayed in his Prince Edward Island cottage mostly during the summer months. He had listed it as his primary residence, which allowed him to claim an annual housing allowance given to senators who live more than 100 kilometres from Ottawa. 

Duffy’s air travel pattern also showed he lived in Ottawa and he had registered his address in the capital “for several official purposes,” according to the original report. 

The report also reveals that Duffy’s lawyers sought to have him exempted from the forensic audit.

Additionally, Harper-appointed Senator Pamela Wallin has chosen to sit as an independent in the Senate for the time being while her own expense claims are audited.  While Wallin's situation is different from Duffy's, it still looks as though she spent an enormous amount of time and money travelling.  This may or may not be necessary travel, I don't know - I will wait for the auditor's report before deciding whether Wallin has abused her privileges.

What I think we need to pay more attention to is the PMO and its denizens' actions in this whole mess.

On Friday, Harper’s former deputy chief of staff Keith Beardsley said Wright made a major mistake that will likely continue to dog the Conservative government for some time to come. 

As well, Eddie Goldenberg, former chief of staff to then-Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien, said Wright was “dead wrong” to cut Duffy a $90,000 cheque.

The Harper government was in full damage-control mode Friday, a day after Sen. Mike Duffy resigned from the Conservative caucus following new allegations he was claiming Senate expenses while campaigning for the Conservative party during the 2011 federal election. 

The prime minister, however, continues to stand by Wright, whose decision to give a $90,000 cheque to Duffy to cover improper Senate expense claims, is under review by the ethics commissioner.

I don't think I need to express further outrage at Duffy's hypocrisy.  Frankly it's out there for everybody to see, and Canadians should be outraged.   Not just with Duffy, but with the people at the top.  Even if the actions of Nigel Wright are deemed to be "ethically acceptable" by Parliament's Ethics Commissioner, they remain actions clearly designed to sweep the whole issue under the carpet.

Canadians should be asking themselves why the PMO is suddenly involving itself in paying off a Senator's debts?  Under Harper, the PMO has become something of a politburo - spending enormous amounts of money "managing the message", from centralizing government communications to actively spying on the utterances of MPs, both government and opposition.  The amount of power and control being exercised from this office since Harper came to power is truly disturbing.  That the members of his "personal office" believe that they are able to intervene directly in such a matter speaks to a sense of not just entitlement but invulnerability from scrutiny.