With trial prep, motions and 41 days in court, that adds up to one huge legal bill for a guy who, rumour has it, is somewhat impecunious.
I'm guessing those will be the longest 41 days in the political career of Stephen Joseph Harper. It could turn into an ordeal for a lot of the players including the PMO types and the Tory Senate leadership.
The known facts raise far more questions than they answer. People are going to be examined and cross-examined on a number of those issues, some of which go uncomfortably close to the prime minister himself.
I'm surprised this has gone on as long as it has and I'll be even more surprised if the trial proceeds in April. I thought this might be settled with a quiet plea bargain deal - no time/conditional sentence/various charges withdrawn - over the Christmas break. Anything, just make it go away soon to put as much distance as possible between Duffy and the next election.
That hasn't happened and I'll spend some time over the next couple of weeks to see if I can find out why.
18 comments:
April 10 is my birthday. Is their any hope of a big , juicy, scandalous present for me?
Who knows, Rumley. I still have difficulty believing the case will ever see a courtroom.
Nigel Wright did aid, abet, covered-up and paid the money for a corrupt Senator, stealing our tax dollars. How can they let Nigel Wright off and not Duffy? Is the fix in and they are ready to go? Again?
There is no decency, honor, ethics nor morals left in this country, what-so-ever.
Man, if I were a Liberal or NDP strategist I'd be looking into paying that dude's legal fees if that was what it took to make that trial happen.
I agree with you mound, I don't think it will ever go to trial. Although I'm curious what they have to offer Duffy.
I don't think an offer of no jail time will do it.There would have to be some money for Duffy, although that could be risky. Curious to see what you find out.
If only us normal people could have the same kind of justice...
"rumleyfips said...
April 10 is my birthday. Is their any hope of a big, juicy, scandalous present for me?
12:24 PM, January 21, 2015"
Mine is April 7. I second your wish.
As far as the trial goes, I fully expect that Duffy has more than a few skeletons left to expose. He was sold down the river by the Harper Cabal™ so his extreme bitterness and failing health (or so we're told) means he has nothing left to lose. It's not as if Harper would try to buy him off with a Senate appointment. ;-)
Go Duffy go.
Simple. Clash of egos.
Both Harper and Duffy think themselves too large for their own good, in the case of Duffy it is obvious his basis for wanting revenge to "clear his good name" or failing that make sure he doesn't go down alone. With Harper, he has already done so much throwing under the bus of serious players within his operation on this he simply cannot walk away from having this go forward, when he decided to remove the Senator from the Senate the way he did he effectively bound himself to this road I submit. I suspect Harper was hoping Duffy's health would prevent this, and/or that the legal process would take its usual long time and be still pending before the fixed election date. Harper made a big deal of his innocence and how much Duffy was a wild lone actor, if he cuts a deal especially after all that has come out on "good to go" for that 90K check, well there isn't much more upside than the trial is likely to provide, it will look like Harper was guilty and bought off the trouble once he saw it going to court, and in an election year that could be electoral poison.
At this point Mound there really isn't much for Harper to gain from not just biting this bullet and having it go through, unless it turns out there really is direct evidence linking Harper personally to this (which there could be) beyond just the belief that no CoS would have done this much without his boss knowing and authorizing ("good to go" seems to fit that here btw, and since we already have that in the public domain...) it, and given what is already out there, what else can he do? Besides, I think he wounded Duffy's self image and ego far too much for Duffy to be an easy buy off, and one of the thing I always got the sense of the "ol Duffster" was underneath that avuncular exterior was a very petty minded vindictive personality when crossed, especially when humiliated, and that vibe/impression I've had from him since the 80s.
So I think at this point barring a major health crisis on the Duffy side this is like watching two cars sliding into each other on ice. You see it coming, you know it will be ugly, and there is nothing that can be done to stop it at this late date.
Now, I could be proven wrong I make no claim of infallibility, but at this point if I was to bet this is how I would bet.
.. any impression that Stephen Harper, his PMO, his Reformatory party.. are somehow invincible should be put to rest. That's a pompous presumption that implies these creeps are greater, more powerful than Canada and Canadians.
The facts of the matter are clear.. as the great wank himself loves to intone.. The Duffy scandal and trial is just part of the larger conspiracy and fallacies. All one needs is to look at the best Harper has to offer.. What? A Paul Calandra? The hysterical closet clown Baird? Leveraging their secret weapon Laureen? Nigel Wright rides again? Maybe the mysterious Ray Novak will step into the breach?
Lordy we just don't know who will screw up next.. Joe Oliver? Kenney? MacKay? Moore? Or the great secret keeper Tony Clement? Goodness, the dirt burden these political jackals must carry.. and the underlings like Sona, Prescott, Morgan.. the Guelph fraud functionaries.. and the enablers like Matt Meier and the mysterious Stephen Lecce.. like Jenni Byrne, just zipping back and forth from PMO to pimping the party then back to nest with the sellout partisan creeps like Jason McDonald, DeLorey, Van Loan et al ..
You can puff yourself up.. and pretend.. like all the Harper posers.. that you're a vital part of some Nation Building notion.. But in reality.. when you're just another creep in a party of creeps.. it all comes crashing down.. its called 'natural consequences' and so far, on this planet.. nobody has figured a way to beat this law.. and for sure for sure, Stephen Harper won't be the One ...
Inevitabley the conservatives will fail & be replaced by yet another neo lib party.
As with Tony Blair in the UK, these morons will never face justice.
Duffy will at best make them shit their pants; the taxpayer will pay for the cleanup.
I would be shocked if the case made it to trial, something will happen at the last minute and harper will come out swinging about the millions in court costs he's saved the taxpayer. Then he will tell us how focused he is on the economy and creating jobs and pull off another strong stable majority.
Salamander you make me laugh very excellent commentary...
Ya bcwater I wonder if harpo will manage to pull a rabbit out of a hat.
Well MoS you got us all thinking...
Like others, I would not be surprised if this didn't get to court. If it does, it seems to me that the most significant dangers for Harper are 1. the double standard of charging Duffy but no one else (particularly Wright) will become more and more obvious, and 2. the "good to go" attitude of Harper (in other words Harper's clear involvement in the conspiracy will be more and more clear to people. However, given that the Cons are still relatively high in the polls after 10 years of unbelievable incompetence and corruption, means that politics has shifted to the degree that something like Duffygate probably doesn't matter. I think many of us are beginning to think that even video of Harper and his entire cabinet taking bribes from Chinese officials while having sex with underage prostitutes wouldn't matter to the base and that they could still get reelected.
I can see commentary like:
"Harper made some mistakes, but Duffy flouted the rules and I think both sides share some blame."
I hope it doesn't come out like that.
Anyone else noticed that Pam Wallin who, arguably, used her expense account more lavishly than Duffy ever did, has still not been charged with anything despite a scathing report from RCMP investigators?
Here's an interesting bit of info. A friend of mine sat down with a gaggle of Tory senators a while ago. The subject of Duffy came up. That somehow morphed into a discussion about the funeral of Jim Flaherty.
One by one these senators conceded that they too had expensed their travel and accommodation costs for attending the funeral which by the Duffy prosecution standards should see all of them charged as well.
What I'm hearing is that much of what has landed Duffy in the prisoner's dock was standard practice in the Senate. This may be why that long-overdue audit report has never surfaced.
Kirby Evans:
Whenever I see that support I am also reminded of how Paul Martin was holding his own in 2005 until that RCMP report changed everything, and I am hoping we see something similar in effect against Harper. Not that the RCMP do that again, bu that an issue hits Harper/CPC credibility with all but the truly hard core base and drive the remaining centrists away from him just as happened for Martin and the Libs then. He is running a tired government that has little positive accomplishments to show for it, and their star branding as being the good economic stewards they have been using has clearly dissolved away over the past few months and is unlikely to restore itself prior to this years election. Do I count on this, no of course not, but it is worth remembering that such shifts do happen in election campaigns even when you would have expected such to have already happened much sooner than that. It goes to that generally tuned out nature between election elections of most voters.
Hells, even Dion was holding his own for minority until that last fateful week when Mike Duffy intervened and did that hatchet job for Harper with the raw footage release from the Murphy interview at ATV. While I agree with you in finding it hard to understand how a government as blatantly anti-democratic, anti-rule of law, and so So SO blatantly corrupt isn't already at the bottom of the polls, it isn't like we haven't seen this before and then it suddenly catch on in an election (and alas also get ignored, but usually there is some larger narrative that overrides, be it for the government or against the opposition, the latter of course being what Harper is playing for as he always has, although this time I am not as convinced he can make it work, but until he is gone I will never count him and that ugly tool out).
I am not quite to the bleak place you are about the state of politics today, but alas I am not far from it, I can certainly see you standing there from where I am. Still though this election will be for me the decider, now that Canadians have seen Harper unchecked in a majority government they cannot claim ignorance as to what he is, how he operates, and what kind of Canada he represents and wants and how divergent it is from all prior Canadian governments going back to Confederation itself. If after that they still re-elect him then I will be joining you in that desolate place.
the biggest problem with canada isnt the folks that vote for Harper, regardless of his flagrant disregard for the laws>
The biggest problem is the 49% that dont bother to vote as they truly hand the country to the likes of Harper and his henchmen.
There is a Jan. 15/15 update that basically sez the audit report can't be given a specific date, due to its width & breadth. Look to late spring if we're lucky.
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