Prime Minister Stephen Harper is stuck in a box, with legal pressure on one side and political pressure on the other, says former parliamentary law clerk Rob Walsh.
In the documents filed in an Ottawa courthouse last week, RCMP Cpl. Greg Horton stated that he had reasonable grounds to believe that Nigel Wright violated Section 121(1)(b) of the criminal code when he paid $90,000 of his own money to Senator Mike Duffy.
That section, entitled “Frauds on the government,” forbids anyone dealing with the government from making a payment to a government official “unless the person has the consent in writing of the head of the branch of government with which the dealings take place.”
That means, Walsh says, that Wright may face prison, and two lawyers who had knowledge of the deal may face sanction from their law societies, unless Harper says that he knew about the deal.
“He can’t say that,” said Walsh. “He would then be publicly responsible for the shenanigans that were going on. That’s a political problem for him. Now, legally if he were to say that, these guys get off. If Harper knew what was going on, that removes the criminality.”
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