OTTAWA—Stephen Harper maintains he knew nothing about the $90,000 cheque cut by his former chief of staff for Mike Duffy, but emails released Thursday show the Conservative leader was kept in the loop as his office tried to manage the Senate scandal.

The emails, released at the Duffy trial in Ottawa, show more of the behind-the-scenes efforts by Harper’s top staffers to manage the scandal’s fallout.

Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, wrote on Feb. 18, 2013 that the prime minister should be briefed on their efforts to clarify Senate residency requirements. The plan appears to have been getting Conservative senators to strike a committee to clarify the rules.

The next day Wright’s eventual successor, Ray Novak, wrote that Harper rejected the plan.

“Had I known we were going down this road I would have shut it down long before this memo,” Harper wrote, according to Novak.

“As long as they maintain a residency in their province, as per tradition, we will deem that as sufficient for the purpose (as opposed to expenses), i.e. the property requirement (equals) residence.”

When CTV bureau chief Robert Fife found out Wright had covered Duffy’s $90,000 in questionable expenses, Harper’s former director of communications Andrew MacDougall recommends “sidestepping” CTV.

Another spokesman, Carl Vallée, asks if Harper knew that Wright covered Duffy’s bill. In response, Wright wrote on May 14, 2013:

“The PM knows, in broad terms only, that I personally assisted Duffy when I was getting him to agree to repay the expenses,” Wright’s email reads. “On the specific matter, I did not co-sign a loan.”

MacDougall ended up telling CTV that Duffy repaid the expenses, and no taxpayer resources were used — which is just enough to be accurate, since Wright gave the money to Duffy, who used it to reimburse the public.

Wright’s testimony at the Duffy trial continued to dog the Conservative leader on the campaign trail Thursday. In Regina, Harper was asked why he was comfortable with the “media lines” drafted by his office that misled Canadians about Duffy’s repayment.

“Why were you ‘good to go’ on public deception?” a reporter asked.

Harper delivered an answer similar to those he has given before.

“Quite the contrary . . . . My concern in this entire matter was that Mr. Duffy was making use of taxpayer dollars in a way that could not be justified. Whether it was within the rules or not, he was making expense claims that did not represent real expenses and I’ve said repeatedly that I could not justify paying expense claims for expenses that were not actually incurred,” Harper said.

“I was told Mr. Duffy was going to repay those expenses, he would explain his own story on that and that, to my knowledge, is exactly what he did until I found out otherwise. When I found out otherwise, I took steps to make sure the people who were responsible for that have been held accountable,” Harper said.

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Here is a collection of e-mails released at trial today:

With files from Joanna Smith

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