Perrin didn't watch the interview. He went for a massage - a previously booked massage, he qualifies. "Because of this day."
There are lots of people with expertise adding comments - please email me at laura(dot)payton(at)cbc(dot)ca if you're interested in chatting off-the-record.
We're now on break until 2:15 p.m.
We are still on the afternoon of Feb. 22, the day Duffy sat down with CBC News to talk about his expenses. Perrin had a couple of conversations with Payne that day and they went back and forth over approved media lines, or responses for senators to give to inquiring journalists.
Perrin says, seeing his email referring to a call, that he would have called Payne back to discuss the media lines. Now we're moving away from Feb. 22 to discuss the lawyer-client relationship. Perrin says the client is the decision-maker in the relationship, subject to legal and other obligations.
Bayne objects: the witness is not here as an expert witness and the judge knows all of this anyway. The Crown, Jason Neubauer, says it will become clear if he can keep going. The judge lets him continue.
Perrin says the role of the lawyer is to act on the client's instructions upon receiving them, subject to the lawyer's other obligations. Perrin confirms he said the government of Canada was his client.
Perrin is describing which people in the govt had the authority to instruct him. That list included Nigel Wright, the PM's then-chief of staff (with whom I believe you are all familiar if you're reading this).
Perrin says he got the accounting of Duffy's $90,000+ in expenses on Feb. 27. This is page 181 of the Crown's book of emails.
They got the amount from Senator David Tkachuk, who was then chair of the Senate's internal economy committee. Payne passed on the amount to Perrin and noted she had just had an email from Gary Timm at Deloitte asking for material from Duffy.
Payne wanted to make sure this repayment would settle any expense issues for Duffy. Perrin thought he'd been clear to her that this amount wouldn't cover any additional expenses they hadn't known about that might be questioned in the future.
Perrin told Wright that he just wanted to make sure the large amount owing was ok.
Perrin says Payne kept trying to find out what was going on with the audit and when they would know when they would be told that Duffy wouldn't have to participate in it. Perrin says she was quite insistent.
Other Feb. 27 emails: they are discussing the PMO position on qualification requirements. Wright says "the PM was definitive in QP today on qualification." Payne had said she was looking for the PMO to say Duffy met all qualifications.
By that evening, Wright responds by email to Perrin , cc'ing Woodcock and Rogers, that he is frustrated. "Does Janice truly understand that if Mike has improperly charged for travel on Senate business when no Senate business actually took place that we cannot now say to him that those expenses are in order?"
Wright noted he'd arrange for the amount to be wired to Payne in trust. Perrin notes he thought the money was coming from the party because Wright was the conduit to Gerstein, and therefore to the Conservative Fund.
Perrin spoke to Payne on Feb. 28, the next morning. He says his conversation with Payne was still fairly cordial, though there was obviously some tension.
Payne then sent the wire instructions and said she had to have an update about how Duffy would know he was withdrawn from the Deloitte review. "As you know, Deloitte is pressing and needs to be told that Senator Duffy is no longer part of their review," she wrote to Perrin.
Payne said LeBreton, Tkachuk and Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, a former spokeswoman for Stephen Harper who was then appointed to the Senate, had to confirm Duffy was withdrawn from the Deloitte audit. Perrin then asked Wright if PMO had an update for Payne on the audit.
Wright responded that he knew it wasn't Perrin's fault, but he was frustrated in part because he was forced to micromanage the file. He had no update for Payne. He was also frustrated because "we are not making any representation that expenses writ large are fully in order."
I have to say I'm surprised at the lack of swearing in all of these emails. If these were from a newsroom and people were this level of frustrated, there would be many, many f-bombs.
Perrin wrote to Wright on March 1 that this was the first he had heard from Payne that the Deloitte work would no longer be needed if Duffy repaid the Kanata expenses. Wright's response: I don't care about her expectations. From what I hear, her client is making this more difficult."
Perrin spoke to Payne on the phone that day and reported back that he told her it wasn't acceptable to make statements that are broader than what was agreed to. I believe he qualified his tone as assertive (sorry, that's the word in my head but it flew by fast).
Perrin says he was frustrated because he had been clear so many times with Payne. He says he was firmer in his language. He felt Payne was trying to create a written record there that wasn't accurate. Recall that PMO insisted on no written agreement about the terms of Duffy's repayment.
On March 5, Payne emailed Perrin and Conservative Party lawyer Arthur Hamilton with the letter she was considering sending to Deloitte following a conversation between Tkachuk and Duffy.
The letter asked Deloitte to confirm that Duffy would be withdrawn from the review/audit. She followed up by phone the next day and left Perrin a message. He then flipped the email to Wright, Rogers, Woodcock and Novak.
We're jumping ahead now to March 14. Payne emailed Perrin at 735 a.m. asking for an update. Perrin doesn't think they've spoken since the last round. He responded to her to hold tight, she replied that she had some suggestions from Duffy for media lines, and Perrin told Payne that Duffy shouldn't change the lines. These are the lines from Feb. 22.
On March 20, Payne emailed Perrin and Hamilton that the Feb. 22 arrangement was in limbo. LeBreton had told senators the day before that no one should raise questions about Deloitte, and Duffy wasn't sure how to read that. Perrin forwarded the email to Patrick Rogers, Nigel Wright, Ray Novak and Chris Woodcock.
Rogers responded he doesn't know anything about the March 19 reference and has been working w/ Senator Irving Gerstein, who was "trying to arrange the necessary commitments from Deloitte."
Perrin notes he had a side conversation with Wright at some point in March that he didn't think Deloitte would give up the audit. He said he made the point that audit firms are given mandates and complete them. Perrin says he felt uncomfortable even raising it with Wright because of Wright's superior business background.
This letter from Payne is what Wright called a "very dangerous tactic" in a March 20, 7:34pm email.
He said it wasn't about the audit being called off, but about Deloitte not having to come to a conclusion on primary versus secondary residence.
Perrin says he spoke to Payne the next day. Payne sent an email to Perrin on March 21: "given the lack of concrete result thus far and the ultimate objective... I see no reason not to send the message I suggested below to Deloitte."
Perrin wrote back that he just got an email on that issue and that he would get back to her the next day because everyone was in budget lock-up that day. The lock-up means media and staff give up their blackberries (and other smart phones) and can't communicate with the outside world.
I hadn't noticed that PMO staff also give up their blackberries for budget lock-ups.
Rogers responded re: Gerstein's talk with Deloitte: any repayments won't change Deloitte's conclusions because they were asked to opine on residency, but can't reach a conclusion on residency because Payne hadn't given them anything.
Perrin asked Rogers, Wright, Woodcock and Novak (the same group is on all of these emails) how to have Duffy engage with Deloitte. He noted Duffy and Payne would be very unhappy.
Perrin told the group that he thought they needed to share the Deloitte info "in good faith" and then explain why Duffy and Payne shouldn't do anything about it. Wright agreed. This led to the infamous March conference call. Perrin requests a break.
We're back! And going over emails we already covered, so not exactly at the conference call day yet.
This conference call is the one where Wright testified Novak was in and out, missing most of it, but where Perrin told police that he remembers looking at Novak to see how he reacted to Wright mentioning he was giving Duffy the money to repay the Senate expenses.
On March 20,in the "dangerous tactic by her" email from Wright, he wrote that Perrin had told Payne "several times" that this was not about the audit being called off, but about Deloitte not having to conclude on primary vs secondary residence. Perrin tells the court that that was Wright's description; he wouldn't describe it as telling Payne "several" times.
Perrin says he thought it would be unethical not to tell Payne and Duffy about the Deloitte info since they had been encouraging them not to deal with Deloitte.
Crown: why would you feel you had to approach Mr. Wright and explain the audit firm would follow through? Perrin: Because the contacts were being made through someone other than the principle who retained the firm.
We're back at the #Duffy trial, a bit late due to a bad internet connection. Follow along here live.cbc.ca/Event/Mike_Duf…by Laura Payton via twitter 8/20/2015 6:21:24 PM