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The scheme only became public after a CTV news report on the evening of May 14.

The next morning, said Harper, he met with Wright, the successful Toronto financier he had brought to Ottawa in 2010 to be his right-hand man.

“He told me what he had done,” said Harper.

“I think, to be frank, my first series of reactions were probably in the realm of more stunned and disbelief.

“I, for the life of me, still can’t figure out – I don’t think anybody can figure out – why, for whatever reason, somebody would take this money of his own and give it to somebody who we all believed didn’t deserve it.”

Harper said he felt a range of emotions.

“A sense of anger, betrayal, disappointment, deception. You can name it. Those emotions were there too.

“But look, I always say I don’t want to sit here and kind of indulge my emotional experience over the issue. It’s been a very emotional experience. My job as a leader is not to indulge my own emotions. It’s to try and deal with situations.”

In the early days of the scandal, Harper’s office initially stood behind Wright — only accepting his resignation after a few days of political uproar. Since then, the scandal has deepened — with both Wright and Duffy facing criminal investigations, and opposition parties alleging there was corruption in Harper’s office.

Harper acknowledged that in hindsight he “would have done a few things differently” as the scandal unfolded. But he maintained his office has taken “appropriate steps” to ensure that never again can the prime minister be left out of the loop this way.