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It was “a fiction, a fraud, a lie conceived for political damage-control purposes,” Bayne alleged. Duffy wanted no part of it but eventually gave in under pressure that “flabbergasted” the lawyer then representing him. He accepted $90,000 from Wright, then sent the money to the government, to help make the scandal go away.

That payment has Duffy facing three charges, which centre on the idea that the $90,000 was a bribe from Wright. No, said Bayne, it was money that was funnelled through his client for strictly political reasons. Far from the instigator, Duffy was a victim, Bayne said.

The question of the payment, to which Wright is expected to testify later in the 41-day trial, is the capstone on a huge edifice of … well, it depends whom you’re asking.

The Crown alleges Duffy began grasping at dollars practically from the moment he took his seat in the Senate.

Let’s keep this simple, prosecutor Mark Holmes told Judge Charles Vaillancourt as he laid out his case.

Holmes had to explain the grounds for 28 charges against Duffy that are completely separate from Wright’s payment. They all involve how Duffy treated the Senate’s money after Harper named him to the red chamber in 2008. Just reading them all so that Duffy could formally plead not guilty took the court clerk 13 minutes.

Many have to do with expense claims: treating his Kanata home as a secondary residence he kept only so he could do Senate business in Ottawa, and filing for compensation for trips he took across the country for, in Holmes’ take, little or no public business.