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Let’s recap.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff secretly cut a personal cheque for more than $90,000 for a sitting senator to cover disputed expenses that the senator repeatedly said — cross-his-heart-and-hope-to-die — that he had already paid back out of his own, overburdened pocket.

And, according to the Inspector Clouseaus at the RCMP — who apparently spent nearly a year looking into what appeared to be a covert, politically expedient hush-money scheme between the most powerful Harper-appointed, non-elected politico and a Harper-appointed senator — none of it amounts to so much as a summary offence.

Stripped of the embroidery, that’s precisely what the RCMP wants you and me to believe.

Well then, an old Horseman must have been telling me the truth when he told me long ago in his Ottawa office that any case involving more than three zeros was beyond the Mounties’ abilities.

At the time, I thought he was joking or shoveling you-know-what. Still, he was certainly well-placed to be in the know since he was a former member of, if memory serves, the RCMP’s Commercial Crime Branch, which is tasked with investigating white-collar crimes, including fraud and “the corruption of public officials”.

But like more than a few Mounties who get lots of expensive training on the public’s dime to sharpen their ability to follow the money, he followed the money right out of the RCMP and into a much more lucrative job at a forensic accounting firm in the nation’s capital.

Being math-challenged could partly explain the Mounties’ inexplicable decision not to pursue any charges — summary or indictable — against Nigel Wright — who, not surprisingly, promptly broke his silence (through his lawyer) to claim absolute legal vindication and to reiterate that he cut the cheque for Senator Mike Duffy to save you and me the expense and bother.

How considerate.

You may recall that the last time most Canadians saw or heard from Wright was when an intrepid CTV reporter tracked him down while he took his early morning run through Ottawa’s barren downtown core. Wright briefly stopped to say that he had made “a mistake” before scampering off.

Yesterday’s surprising events signal, yet again, that the rich, powerful and politically-connected are seemingly immune from any meaningful accountability for their actions.

Beyond a short press release announcing its decision to drop the Wright probe on the eve of a state funeral, the RCMP’s top brass has taken up residence in the cone of silence to skirt all sorts of uncomfortable, unanswered questions about this discreditable affair.

The ordinary citizen part of me is perturbed by yesterday’s surprising events — which signal, yet again, that the rich, powerful and politically-connected are seemingly immune from any meaningful accountability for their actions.

The former investigative reporter in me is resigned to it all. I recall that the RCMP decided not to do a damn thing when it was revealed that former prime minister Brian Mulroney pocketed at least $225,000 in cash-stuffed envelopes from Karlheinz Schreiber, a notorious Austrian financier and arms dealer, while the pair met in New York soon after Mulroney left office in 1993.

Mulroney failed to record the cash exchange. He failed to deposit the money into a bank, choosing instead to stash the cash in a household safe and a safety deposit box. And, perhaps most crucially, he failed to disclose the cash payments for six years despite repeated opportunities to do so.

In the end, Mulroney struck a sweetheart deal to pay back taxes on only half of the $225,000 he received from Schreiber for his “lobbying” services.

Like Wright, Mulroney insisted that he had done nothing illegal or unethical. Mulroney conceded — albeit reluctantly and belatedly — that he had made an error in judgment.

Ultimately, Mulroney got a tepid slap on the wrist from Justice Jeffrey Oliphant who — after examining Mulroney’s financial relationship with Schreiber — described the former prime minister’s conduct as “inappropriate” and failing to “reflect the highest standards of office.”

Ironically, it was Harper who called in Justice Oliphant to head a Commission of Inquiry to delve into Mulroney’s curious and fruitful dealings with Schreiber.

Harper will never call an inquiry into his former chief of staff’s financial relationship with a senator nor any of the Senate scandal’s other tentacles that may yet directly implicate him — not a former Tory prime minister.

A persuasive case could be made that despite the scope and nature of Mulroney’s transgressions, it’s the Harper government that has done more to undermine the “highest standards” of the highest office in the land.

Andrew Mitrovica is a writer and journalism instructor. For much of his career, Andrew was an investigative reporter for a variety of news organizations and publications including the CBC’s fifth estate, CTV’s W5, CTV National News — where he was the network’s chief investigative producer — the Walrus magazine and the Globe and Mail, where he was a member of the newspaper’s investigative unit. During the course of his 23-year career, Andrew has won numerous national and international awards for his investigative work.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.