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Mr. Bildhauer confirmed that he had sent the email, and that there was a plan for the Khan campaign to show support for Ms. Gainey’s bid in exchange for her public endorsement in return. But he insisted that it was not a case of buying Ms. Gainey’s support.

“If you want to show that you really support someone … The only way that you can really prove it is with a donation,” Mr. Bildhauer said. “I mean ‘show me the money,’ you know what I mean? And it takes a lot of money to run all these campaigns.”

Mr. Bildhauer maintained that he did negotiate the arrangement with Ms. Gainey’s camp, but when pressed to identify whom he had spoken to on her team, he refused.

“[The Gainey campaign] got very upset about it,” he said. “I don’t know how they expected me to raise funds if I didn’t send that message to my supporters, but I’m already in trouble with them, so for me to go deeper in doo-doo I can’t do that, I’m really sorry. Next time I’ll be more careful.”

If you want to show that you really support someone … the only way that you can really prove it is with a donation. I mean ‘show me the money’

But he said that characterizing this as an exchange of money for support was not correct.

“The money thing is not a trade. It’s ‘we support you if you support us,’” he said. “I don’t think it’s buying votes, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

Errol Mendes, a professor of law at the University of Ottawa, described the situation as interesting, because it involves the largely unlegislated domain of private deals that nevertheless touch democratic politics — in this case an election within a federal political party.

“It’s a grey area,” said Mr. Mendes. “If it’s private-to-private, it isn’t really covered by existing [elections] legislation, which only covers bribery of public officials. You would hope that people would engage with this issue, and at some point one would hope to see legislation to address these gaps. But for right now, it’s a big grey area.”

“I do want to be clear though: I don’t approve of anyone doing this kind of thing.”

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