Conservative Leader Stephen Harper on Tuesday avoided answering questions about Conservative Senator Irving Gerstein’s possible role in attempts by the PMO to minimize scrutiny of Senator Mike Duffy’s expenses, which are now the subject of criminal charges.

When Harper was asked on the campaign trail if he views Gerstein’s involvement in the Duffy affair as improper or a betrayal of his trust, as Harper has deemed Nigel Wright’s actions to be, he avoided the question.

“There is one person on trial” for what he said were Duffy’s “bogus expenses.”

Harper said Wright, his former chief of staff, “was aware that I told him (Duffy) to pay that money back and they both told me that money had been paid back, and it had not been paid back due to the actions of Mr. Wright and those are the two people who are responsible.”

According to evidence at the trial and Gerstein’s statement to the RCMP, Gerstein approached — at Wright’s suggestion — his “senior contacts” at the audit firm of Deloitte about its review of Duffy’s residency claims. The review was commissioned by a Senate committee that Gerstein didn’t sit on.

Harper pointed only to testimony by auditors from Deloitte, who told a Senate committee their audit of Duffy was not influenced by Gerstein’s conversations with Deloitte’s senior partner.

“The people that are responsible for Mr. Duffy not repaying his (alleged) bogus expense claims are Mr. Duffy and Mr. Wright,” Harper said, as partisan applause from GTA candidates and party workers drowned out reporters’ attempts to ask follow-up questions, and the microphones were cut off.

According to Wright’s testimony at Duffy’s trial, and a November 2013 RCMP affidavit, Gerstein — chair of the party’s election war chest — was initially willing to use up to $32,000 of Conservative party funds to cover Duffy’s Senate expenses.

Duffy claimed he was broke and Nigel Wright, Harper’s former chief of staff, decided to transfer $90,000 personally to Duffy.

After Gerstein balked as the bill for Duffy’s expenses rose to $90,000, the RCMP affidavit said, he suggested to Wright that he file an expense claim for $60,000 to cover Wright’s outlay to Duffy, a suggestion Wright told the RCMP he dismissed.

Once his payment to Duffy became public, Wright resigned.

It is not expected that Gerstein or several other Conservative senators will be called to testify, sources have told the Star, as their evidence is no longer seen as necessary to prove basic elements of the fraud and breach-of-trust charges against Duffy.

The trial resumes Nov. 18.

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Questions remain about Gerstein’s role and that of other Conservative senators, who tried to screen Duffy from audit scrutiny, a condition, Duffy’s trial heard, set out as part of a “repayment scenario” organized in the Prime Minister’s Office to halt a series of embarrassing stories about Duffy’s expenses.

The PMO also wanted to end questions about Duffy’s constitutional eligibility to sit in the Senate for P.E.I. when he was a long-time resident of Ottawa.

Duffy has pleaded not guilty to 31 charges, related to senate housing, travel and contracting expenses. The charges include allegations Duffy’s receipt of the $90,000 payment from Wright amounted to his acceptance of a bribe. Wright has not been charged.

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