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Wright, Harper’s former right-hand man, disagreed with numerous of Bayne’s characterizations of how his PMO team handled the Duffy affair, but his testimony was occasionally supportive of the embattled senator.

During intense questioning by Bayne, Wright agreed that he had told Harper that in forcing Duffy to repay his expenses, they were likely forcing the senator to repay money he didn’t legally owe.

Wright, a key witness in the trial, agreed that he had cautioned Harper about the uncertain legal grounds. “I wanted the PM to be comfortable with that,” he said.

A wealthy businessman and politically active Conservative since his teenage years, 52-year-old Wright conceded that he had been “very persistent” with Duffy in an effort to get him to publicly admit that his claiming of Prince Edward Island as his primary residence was “inappropriate.” Saying that P.E.I. was his main residence allowed Duffy to claim expenses for a secondary home in Kanata.

It was “politically embarrassing,” testified Wright, that a member of the government caucus was claiming expenses for a home in the Ottawa area that he had lived in since the 1970s.

Duffy eventually succumbed to what Wright characterized as his “persuasion” but what Bayne called threats and browbeating.

“Is it true agreement when you force someone to do something?” he asked Wright.

Wright conceded that Duffy had persuaded him he did not deserve to be publicly lumped in with disgraced senators Mac Harb and Patrick Brazeau, and agreed to “put Mike in a different bucket and to prevent him from going squirrelly on a bunch of weekend panel shows.”