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Canada News

Testy trial: Sparks fly between Duffy's lawyer, former PMO firefighter

What happens when Stephen Harper's former political firefighter goes head to head with a man who's trying to take a flamethrower to the Prime Minister's Office? At Sen. Mike Duffy's fraud, breach of trust and bribery trial, the answer was a shower of sparks Monday in what was perhaps the most hostile confrontation between lawyer and witness of the entire courtroom saga to date.It all came down to the question of who among Harper's staff knew about the $90,000 secret repayment of Duffy's expenses. The firefighter was Chris Woodcock, the 33-year-old former director of issues management inside the PMO. His role inside the Harper team was to identify potential headaches for the PM in the media, and figure out how to extinguish them. As it turns out, Woodcock became embroiled in a scandal that would give Harper perhaps the biggest migraine of his government — the Duffy expenses imbroglio.

Your claim is just like [Harper's Chief of Staff] Ray Novak's, 'Gee, I got the email, it's only to me, but golly I never read it.' That's your claim.

Mike Duffy's lawyer Donald Bayne

Woodcock was among the staff members who appear in dozens and dozens of emails about striking a deal with Duffy to get him to repay his contested living expenses — negotiations that ultimately led to Harper's former chief of staff Nigel Wright secretly paying $90,000 out of his own pocket. Woodcock told the Crown that he wasn't aware that Wright had repaid the $90,000 until it came out in the media, despite receiving an email where Wright tells him directly he's going do to it. Duffy's lawyer Donald Bayne began a cross-examination with a withering attack on that element of Woodcock's testimony. The defence has been striving to undermine the credibility of certain Crown witnesses, including Wright.

You're adopting the position that this is written in hieroglyphics, sir. This is written in English and you read English, sir?