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“It’s the old story. The cover up is always more damaging than the original issue,” he said.

Duffy was being “scapegoated unfairly,” said Mr. Bayne who accused the Senate of rushing to judgement by trying to suspend him.

“How can he be sentenced now by this mob mentality without a trial?”

“The problem still hasn’t gone away, so Duffy has to go away,” Bayne told reporters in Ottawa.

The Senate was to debate three motions this week to suspend without pay Sen. Pamela Wallin, Duffy and Sen. Patrick Brazeau. Should the motions pass as currently worded, the three embattled senators would be politically banished from the upper chamber and stripped of all their rights, left only with their titles.

Bayne took the offensive on behalf of Duffy Monday, saying of the motion, “It’s shameful, it’s shocking, it’s unconstitutional.”

Wallin’s lawyer said Friday that she was considering legal action should the Senate vote to suspend her without pay. Terrence O’Sullivan said the Saskatchewan senator would make a decision before Tuesday.

The motions have caused concern among some senators for the precedent they could set. Wallin’s case has been the one that has drawn the most interest because the Senate has yet to formally adopt her audit and the accompanying committee report that includes recommendations to limit her spending and travel.

Until the report is adopted, Wallin has full spending rights as a senator.

Only once before in the Senate’s history has a senator been suspended without pay. In 1998, a near-unanimous vote suspended Andrew Thompson without pay for his abysmal attendance record. The Liberal senator was found to have spent more time in Mexico than Ottawa for what he argued were medical treatments for cancer.

Thompson resigned six weeks after the Senate voted to suspend him.

Duffy’s lawyer said Duffy won’t be in the Senate Tuesday because of illness.

With files from Post staff